


STAY!

by Golden_Ticket



Series: TOGETHER! [2]
Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: 5+1 Things, Childhood Friends, Dark Times, F/M, First Time, Mutual Pining, Platonic Bed Sharing, Through the Years, bed sharing, chronological structure, episodic, from kids to post-pyeongchang, not so platonic bedsharing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-22
Updated: 2018-06-24
Packaged: 2019-05-10 07:07:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 33,854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14732246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Golden_Ticket/pseuds/Golden_Ticket
Summary: orFive Times Tessa & Scott Share A Bed & One Time They Don't***When she gets back, Scott isn’t there and she settles in on the bed a little out of place. By the time he gets in, Tessa has burrowed herself in under the covers and watches him as he closes the door and then locks it.“What’s that about?” She asks him, trying for an even voice. He turns and looks at her for a moment and then shrugs.“Mom said you should sleep in Danny’s room, so I locked it. And I’m locking this too, so she can’t barge in here and check.” A pause then, until he adds: “Unless you wanna sleep there?”“No,” she says quickly, maybe too quickly.***They share many beds through the years, these are five of the most significant times.





	1. One

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fitslikeakey](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fitslikeakey/gifts).



> Originally, I wanted to make this one big one-shot again but then I ran away with it and I'm at the 4th "episode" now and already pushing 11.000 words and that's just ridiculous, so I'm making chapters.
> 
> So if you want to subscribe so you don't miss anything, you won't miss the daily update :D 
> 
> I really hope you like this. As always, I am trying to stick to the official known timeline but everything outside of dates and most people is complete conjecture and I'm sorry for writing smut (again)...I just can't seem to talk myself off of that cliff anymore. Sorry Tessa and Scott, please never stumble upon this.
> 
> Okay...so here we go. I hope you'll enjoy 5+1 TS BED SHARING FUN!!
> 
> PS: I am gifting this to Fitslikeakey because she was yelling about platonic bed sharing and this has at least a liiiiittle bit of that. (I hope you like it even if not all of it is platonic!)

## Just Stay

**OR**

**Five Times Tessa & Scott Share A Bed & One Time They Don't**

  


**I.**

Truthfully, with as many kids as the Virtues and Moirs share among the two families, sometimes practical concerns outweigh the theoretical. Theoretically, boys should room with boys and girls with girls, because that’s the way it’s done (mind you, it’s not like the ten year old Scott and the eight year old Tessa would know what to even do that could warrant not being alone in a room together, but _still_ ). Theoretically, Tessa and Scott should not be put in the same bed in the Moir’s basement just for reasons of propriety. But practically, Jordan as well as Cara and Sheri who are staying over, have occupied Scott’s room a while ago to do “girls stuff” (probably prank-calling boys which Alma and Joe will pretend to have no knowledge of when it comes up in the parents-meeting at their school that someone in their house called up and down the middle school’s hockey team directory).

 

Practically, also, Danny and Casey are playing video games upstairs in Danny’s room and Charlie has locked himself in his due to puberty-reasons (he had a melt-down over cucumber salad an hour ago, the reasons of which still unclear to virtually everyone but Charlie––and even this is doubtful). So, practically, when it’s close to midnight and the adults have moved on from the grill dinner-wine to beer and little Scottie and tiny Tutu are getting cranky from sitting on laps and not being allowed to join their older siblings (because Scott is annoying and hogs the controller and Tessa is not welcome in the boy-crazy, pre-slash-mid-pubescent girl gang for the time being), Joe makes the executive decision to bunk them together on the pull-out couch in their playroom in the basement.

 

Because Joe is smart and the children are gullible, he can easily appease them for missing all the “exciting” fun upstairs by giving them a lemonade each (no Coke, god forbid) and popping in the VHS of that Dalmatian Disney movie that Scott has watched so much recently, the tape has started skipping at certain scenes. Scott and Tessa, transfixed as ever by the movie, don’t mind the little cuts and jumps. They also don’t mind being alone in a room together. As long as the movie is on at least.

 

Once the credits roll, the two of them sit next to each other under a duvet Scott’s Dad had thrown over them both, watching the moving letters and listening to the last song and if they were old enough to fully grasp the meaning of the word “awkward”, that’s what they would call the mood. When the tape is positively, fully over to the point of snow on the screen, Tessa is the one who speaks (which happens more and more lately, to Scott’s great joy because _finally_ he can talk during skating practice with someone who will actually talk back...also it means that she has probably forgiven him for breaking up with her a while ago, which is also nice).

“We should turn it off and go to sleep,” she says.

“Yeah,” Scott agrees because he has literally no idea what else to do with her and scoots from the mattress (which is quite a journey because they’re propped up with their backs against the wall and he is little) but finally he makes it off the couch with a whomp and trudges over to the TV set, deftly thumping down the off-button as soon as it is in reach.

 

He realises instantly that he’s made a terrible mistake.

“Scott!” Tessa calls to him from somewhere in the pitch darkness.

Why has his father turned all the lights off when he’d left? He can’t see _a thing._ Not that he’s scared, he’s _not._ He is just...caught off guard, is all. Anyway, Tessa is scared so he can’t be. He has to be not-scared so he can make her not-scared as well. He has to be a big boy now. He has to take care of his partner, that's what partners _do._

“I’m sorry,” he croaks and is too disoriented to find the TV button again to undo this unfortunate mishap. He just staggers forward until his knees bump into the pull-out and then slouches forward, crawling onto the mattress. Then Tessa suddenly shrieks like she might be dying.

“Something is _touching_ me!” She yells, all high-pitched mortal terror.

“That’s me!” Scott yells back, startled by her startledness and then lowers his voice like he would with a cornered cat or something (he heard that you should stay calm when you scared a living thing or they might bite. He would rather Tessa didn’t bite him). “It’s just me, Tess.”

 

He feels blindly with his hand for her and lands on an ankle or wrist, he isn’t quite sure, and pats it lightly: “See, just me, I’m here. You don’t need to be scared.”

“I’m not scared,” Tessa snaps in quick defence but at the same time her hand lands on his and pulls him up all the way to the wall with her. (And so it was her ankle he’d fished for...and also why hasn’t he noticed that she is crazy strong before? Maybe she could even beat him at arm-wrestling. ...Pshh, no, never. She couldn’t. _Probably._ )

“Do you want me to find a nightlight?” Scott offers once he is back where he started (at least he thinks he is and he is definitely leaning with his back against the wall again, so he should be okay).

 

“I’m _not_ scared,” Tessa repeats. (She is still holding his hand, anyway.)

“It’s okay, though,” he tells her and he has an idea that he should find it strange to be holding her hand because she’s a girl and girls are weird and giggly and annoying but he has held Tessa’s hand so much, it sometimes feels like it’s his (even when that makes no sense at all and it’s a funny thing to imagine how he just has a third hand that he holds that is his, no Tutu attached to it at all, just her hand). So it’s okay. But he still wants to make her feel better. “It’s okay, I was scared of the dark too when I was younger.”

“I’m not scared of the dark,” Tessa insists. “I just don’t like when I can’t see things.”

“But when you sleep you don’t see things either?” Scott tells her. “So I can look for a nightlight or you can fall asleep.”

“I can’t fall asleep just like that,” she says.

“Yes you can, you do it in the car all the time,” Scott argues.

 

It’s true, since he got her that Marvin the Martian body-pillow, they have come up with the best way to sleep in the backseat of his Dad’s or her Mom’s car when they drive them to the rink for practice before school and it works every time!

“We could just do it like that,” he offers and fumbles close to his body for a stray pillow to use. When he has found one, he carefully puts it over their laps and she finally lets go of his hand to feel for it. (He wipes his sweaty palm on it too but she won’t see because it’s dark, so it’s alright.)

“So?” He asks her. “Do you wanna?”

“Okay,” she says after a moment and then the pillow is moving up and he loses his grip on it.

“Ready?” She asks him and he nods, then realises that’s stupid because she can’t see him and then says: “Yes.”

“Okay,” Tessa mutters. “One, two, three!”

 

Never in his life has Scott felt pain like this before. Okay, that’s entirely not true––when he gets shoved and tossed against the boards in hockey practice it hurts worse but that is hard to remember now that Tessa has knocked her head against his with all her stupid strength (the pillow obviously did not stick around for their heads’ meeting). At least Tess has said “Ouch” very loudly too, so it hurt her as well and not just him that's hurting.

 

 _Oh no._ She’s _hurt. He's hurt her._

 

Tessa lets out a wail next to him and it’s really loud and it’s really terrible and he has instantly forgotten about his own swimming head and turns around to where the crying is coming from and guesses the general direction of her face and reaches for it, carefully. What he lands on is a wet cheek and Tessa has already dialed down her sobs to little mewls. She sounds like a weird little baby kitten, he thinks.

“I’m so sorry,” he says, moving his hand to where he supposes they crashed together and finds that he is right when his fingers touch hers. “Don’t cry, T, do you want me to get your Mom?”

“No,” she cries. “I’m fine, it was my own fault. I dropped the pillow. Owwww, ouch.”

“It’ll be okay,” he tells her, smoothing out the skin of her forehead (or temple? Who knows?) with his hand when she pulls hers out of the way. “See, I’ll blow on it and then it’ll be right back to before.”

He does blow on it, even though they are probably too old for this. But Tessa stops crying so there’s that.

“Can we just go to sleep?” She sniffs and pulls up her nose which makes him withdraw his hand because while Tess might be okay for a girl, he does _not_ want to get her snot on him, _thank you very much._

“Yes, okay,” he says. “Let’s just lie down. You can wiggle down easy, see, like me. You won't hurt yourself.”

 

Scott makes sure to bump into her shoulder as he shuffles lower, so she understands what he means and soon, the pull out-couch is shaking with their rattle-snaking downwards onto their backs.

“That’s fine, eh?” He asks her then, staring into blackness and feeling her settle in beside him. “Not scary at all. Is your head better?”

“Yes,” she says and he feels the rustling and pulling of the blanket as she pulls it up to their chests, leaving room for him to put his arms out before they get too hot underneath.

 

“Scott,” she whispers after a while when he has already closed his eyes.

“Hm?”

“Can I tell you a secret?” She asks. “But you must promise not to tell.”

“Of course,” he says, eyes opening uselessly into darkness and very curious (he _loves_ secrets). “Skating partner’s honour.”

Tessa takes a deep breath, so deep the blanket shifts from it and now Scott is _really_ curious.

“I never slept without a nightlight,” she murmurs finally, even quieter than before and sounds like she is ashamed. (Not as juicy as he had hoped, that secret.)

“Oh, Tessie, that’s not so bad,” he whispers back. “I can still get you one?”

“No,” Tessa says quickly. “It’s time. I should learn to sleep without one.”

“I’ll just hold your hand until you’re asleep, okay?” Scott says and finds her arm on the blanket, putting her fingers between his like he does when they skate and squeezes once. She squeezes back. He feels very grown up right now and he knows Tessa is his responsibility, so he is proud that he is doing such a good job. “It’s alright. I’m here.”

“Thanks,” Tessa says and breathes in deep. He does too.

 

This is what they do in the car too, because it’s annoying when their shoulders move at different times when they try to sleep, so they breathe together. In and out, until they’re the same. It works lying down as well, which they had not tried before. That is good, it means that he will be able to sleep. He doesn’t even mind holding Tessa’s hand again. He doesn’t mind either when she lets go. He minds _a little bit_ when she starts tossing and turning beside him after a while but not enough to keep him from falling asleep, really. He just drawles her name sleepily after a very sharp turn and blanket-pull to his side and then finally grabs her arm and puts both of his around it to hold her still.

 

“Jus’ stay,” he mumbles, barely awake and somehow, she does.

 

It’s the weirdest way Scott Moir has fallen asleep in his life up to that point, all car-contortions and sleeping-upright’s anywhere included, but little Scottie doesn’t think it’s bad at all. Tessa’s arm is like a plushie (not that he sleeps with plushies anymore, he doesn’t, honest, only when he’s sick...or sad, or nervous before a hockey game or a skating competition). To him, in the complete darkness of the basement in his house, it’s nice the way it is, to fall asleep holding on to his best friend (she is his best friend, even then, even when he would never say it out loud and won’t, not for years). For little Scott, it’s nice that he’s not alone. It’s nice how he can hear her breathing. It’s nice that he can make her not be afraid to sleep without a nightlight, because he’s been there, done that and he can help someone with something for once (being the youngest of three boys usually means nobody needs his help figuring out anything new ever).

 

He loves his big brothers, even if they don’t let him play video games or make him carry their skates and hockey sticks to the rink. But he is also envious of them because _he_ does not get to be a big brother. He does not get to look after anybody or tease anybody or teach anybody anything. But since there was Tessa, he could do all that with her. The teasing, he likes best most of the time because she always laughs when he tries and he likes it when she does that. He doesn’t like so much that when he teaches her a skating trick (like going backward real fast and spinning on one skate, she tries it twice and is then better at him than he is which then means he has to work double as hard as her so he’s better again) but he likes it anyway when she asks him things that only he can tell her. Like he’s a big brother. Like he is needed too.

 

And Tessa, she needs him, definitely. That’s a nice feeling. He likes it.

(It’ll be his downfall one day far along the line, how much he likes being needed by her, how much he _needs_ to be needed by her, but he doesn’t know that then.)


	2. Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next one...I hope you like this too! 
> 
> We're moving on to the confusing teenage years...let's see what our two thick-headed platonics are up to, shall we?

**II.**

Three days. They make it _three days_ training in Canton, Michigan before Tessa breaks out in tears at the rink under Marina Zueva’s scrutiny and, frankly, incessant _yelling._ It’s not like Tessa Virtue to kick and scream though (the way she could, given the way she is being treated, God knows Scott is very damn close to), no, she just skates back to center ice as she is told and acts like there aren’t any tears streaming down her face ruining her dollar store mascara-job. Scott follows close behind, tentatively putting his hand on her back, gathering the one that doesn’t land on his shoulder by instinct in his free one and squeezes.

“Don’t listen to her, you’re doing fine,” he mutters to her, under his breath so only she can hear.

“No, she’s right, I’m too slow on the turn, it messes up the re-entry into the foxtrot,” she says, looking at his shirt collar instead of his eyes and he can tell she wants to pull up her nose but doesn’t, because she doesn’t want to alert anybody to the fact that the tears just keep coming.

“Less talking,” Marina shouts from the board with her heavy Russian accent and Scott wonders for the third time in as many days if they’d made the right decision coming here. “More focus! Again.”

 

Tessa pushes through, like she always does and eventually the tears stop, replaced with a stern determination making every move sharp and distinguished and she tries her best. She doesn’t spin fast enough two hours later either but by then Scott just gives her an extra hard push going into it, which means they hit the moment of getting back face-to-face better every time.

“Good job, now,” Marina says at the end of it and Scott is glad but also angry that Tessa thanks her before she leaves the rink, as if the woman had not been terrible to her all day. And don’t get him wrong, he likes Marina, he really does. She knows what she is doing and she knows what to tell them most of the time to get their skating better (read: more Russian), plus she makes no secret of the fact that she thinks Scott is a terrific skater (“Best I have seen since Sergej, very gifted young man, Scott.”), which does stroke his ego and inclines her to him––but he hates the way she talks to Tessa sometimes, had hated it since the first day Paul had taken them to her what already feels like millenia ago to drill some Russian moves into them.

 

“Posture is good, technique is not,” Marina had said to Tessa (it might have been the first thing she had ever said to her as well, which might be the worst thing about it) and somehow Scott had felt personally offended, even if it hadn’t been about him at all. But with Tessa being Tessa, every time that Marina was happy with anything she did, she grew two inches and vowed to repeat this very great moment (of actually being recognized for the incredible skater and dancer that she is) and got more determined to please. And so she would eat the critique (and skip dinner) and take the yelling and soak it all up like a sponge and look like she deserves to be thrown into a pit of shame anytime she misstepped. Nothing is worse than Tessa looking like she deserves being treated like shit (and he knows that look intimately because whenever he loses his temper, she looks at him like that, like she messed up and made him angry...and sometimes, he’s too angry at himself or the world to be able to tell her that it’s almost never her fault and he never wants her to feel that way because of him).

 

“T, wait up,” he calls after her as soon as she has rounded the corner to the dressing room and she does but doesn’t turn around to look at him. “Do you wanna maybe come back to my place and watch a movie? We could get a hot chocolate on the way, maybe? Or ice cream? Brandon is gone for a seminar for the weekend, so we could watch something on his big TV.”

“It’s fine, you don’t have to take care of me,” she tells him dismissively and it breaks his heart a little. “I’m fine.”

“Oh, come on Tutu, I know you are,” he tries. “I just-”

“Don’t call me that,” she cuts in and catches his eye as they stop in front of the changing rooms. “I’m not a little girl anymore.” She looks like she means it. (She’s fifteen, she’s absolutely a little girl still, he tells himself. _She is, she is, she is._ )

 

“ _Tessa,_ ” he tries again, because sometimes, he can be stubborn too. “Come on, it’s Saturday. If we can’t go back to London this weekend, let’s be together at least. I miss home, I know you do too. Do it for me, Tess, okay?”

“That’s emotional blackmail,” she says but that glare fades, the lines around her eyes softening along with her furrowed brow.

“I’ll pay for the hot chocolate, too?” He pushes on.

“That’s _bribery,_ ” she states and he laughs, because now it’s a joke. He’s got her.

 

And he delivers on his promise. On the way to the apartment he shares with one of the coaches (Brandon, nice dude, looks like a frat boy but is actually pretty smart and laid back) a short drive away from the rink, he stops at a Starbucks and waits for Tessa to grab them hot chocolates and donuts and takes back his wallet when she’s done.

“Do you want to talk about earlier?” He asks her once they're driving again and he is careful not to go too fast or steer too abruptly so she doesn’t spill the hot beverages which she is balancing on her lap in one of those cardboard cup holders.

“No,” she replies, like he pretty much knew she would. She’s been doing that a lot lately, draw back into herself and won’t talk to him when she’s bothered by something. He should get behind that. But all in due time.

“Okay,” he tells her instead of prying (like he would want to). “But maybe text Tiffany that you’ll be at mine, just so she doesn’t call your parents that you’ve been kidnapped when you’re not home soon?”

“Oh, she’s at her boyfriend’s anyways,” she says. “I have seen her maybe fifteen minutes since I moved in. It’s like living with a ghost. I don’t think she likes me very much.”

 

“Nonsense,” he argues. “She hasn’t even had a chance to get to know you yet, it’s been three days.”

“You’re already best friends with everybody, Scott” she mutters and he looks over to the passenger seat at her watching the Michigan streets pass by. “I’m not like you. People just don’t...they don’t like me as easily. I’m...awkward and strange.”

“You’re not _awkward and strange_ ,” he repeats, mocking her tone a little bit and when she doesn’t say anything, he reaches over to grab her shoulder and rub it a little bit. “Come on now, T. You’re fantastic. They’ll come around, I know it.”

“Yeah, whatever,” she sighs. “I’m not here to make friends.” (She has picked that phrase up from America’s Next Topmodel, he’s pretty sure.)

 

He kind of wants to get into that whole thing (because Tessa is too young to be stuck friendless in a strange city and also he doesn’t really like the responsibility of being her only friend here...not that he minds being her friend, that’s pretty much the only thing that kept him from running back home at any given time since he moved away from his family to skate with her, but he can’t be the only one she has here, that’s just insane), but then they have reached his street and just like that the car is parked and they’ve walked up the three flights of stairs to his apartment and the moment is gone.

 

He lets them in, apologizes perfunctorily for the mess and she follows him down the hallway stuffed with three or so of his untouched moving boxes. At the end of it, he points her to the door to his right and tells her to settle in on Brandon’s bed while he gets an assortment of DVDs from his room (that’s the only thing except for his clothes he’s really unpacked so far) and comes back with the few romcoms he owns and some action movies that aren’t too graphic.

 

In the end, they settle for _The Bourne Identity_ , which is pretty neat because he wants to see the second part with his girlfriend in the theater when he gets home next and then he’ll have a refreshed memory and stuff. Thinking of his girlfriend, Scott pushes play on the remote and then checks his texts, reads the five she’s sent him since this morning and puts the phone away, he’ll answer them later. (He won’t, he’ll forget it before the first car chase happens in the movie...because while he might be a “very gifted” skater, he sure is a crappy ass boyfriend if he’s honest).

 

When the first car chase happens in the movie, Tessa sinks against his frame, leaning on him and putting her head on his shoulder. She isn’t usually very cuddly, that’s more his territory, so the fact that she seeks the contact tells him that she isn’t all the way over what happened in training today. He puts his head on hers, just to signify that he’s there for her. After a while of that, he expects her to break the contact, as one would after a minute or so of sitting like this but ten minutes later, she still makes no move away from him. Craning his neck while trying not to startle her, he glances down at her and finds her eyelids closed.

“Tess?” He asks to no reply. “You’re asleep.”

“No, ‘m not,” she slurs and still won’t move.

“You’re a filthy liar,” he exclaims and then shimmies her off of his shoulders which ends up with her groggily and angrily glaring at him while Matt Damon shoots someone on the screen and looks somehow less ticked off.

 

“Just stay,” Scott blurts out before she can give him a talking to.

“What?” Tessa asks, her anger replaced by confusion.

“Stay here,” Scott clarifies. “Brandon is out and Tiffany is out and we had a shitty day, we could have a sleepover. You can stay here and have the bed to yourself. And you can fall asleep to the movie and don’t worry about getting home. Come on, like old times, T?”

“Alright,” Tessa says, going down a lot easier than he had anticipated, but it’s a pleasant surprise. “Do you have stuff for breakfast?”

“Do toast and eggs count?”

“Will do,” she grins. “Do you have something for me to sleep in?”

Scott nods, pauses the DVD and heads to his room (he might have to go back a few minutes on the movie once he’s settled in again because he’s fully stopped paying attention since he noticed Tess had fallen asleep on him).

 

“Tutu, I put sleep clothes in the bathroom for you.” He half-yells to her from the hallway on his way back.

“I told you to stop calling me that,” she says when she pushes past him in the doorway of Brandon’s room. It’s a tight spot and she holds his upper arms with a firm grip to get him out of the way for her (she’s still always stronger than he expects) and holds his eyes the way she does on the ice when they’re doing, like, a tango and she’s pretending to be a grown, sexy woman. “I’m not a kid, Scott.”

“You’re my kiddo, though,” he grins cockily from sheer overwhelmedness because the way she looks at him makes his chest feel weirdly small and he doesn’t know what to do with it. Because it feels like it does just before Lisa kisses him, only louder, somehow, more firm, spreading wider and heavier through his body and he is definitely not supposed to have this reaction to _Tessa._

 

She rolls her eyes at him and snickers (like a child) and he feels immediately cured. Yeah, that’s just a fluke, whatever his traitor body does faced with her sometimes. It’s just confusion, because of what they do on the ice. Because he has to act like they’re in love there. But this is still Tessa, _Baby_ -Tessa, fifteen year old Tessa, who always had a puppy-eyed crush on him. Tessa, who her sister and his cousin tried to make his “girlfriend” when they were just kids and they barely even talked to each other for two years because Tessa was so shy. She’s his friend, she’s like his little sister, god dammit. She’s not even grown. She’s a kid, no matter what she says and he is older and he has a girlfriend anyway and him and Tessa, that just wouldn’t...no, even thinking about it is weird. He watches her duck into the bathroom and shakes his head once she’s out of sight. It’s nothing. He just has a weird brain that likes to mess with him. That’s all it is.

 

Then Tessa comes back in a pair of his looser boxers (that he could’ve sworn would not sit as snugly around her hips and reveal so much of her smooth, dancer’s legs) and a faded skating camp shirt with her hair undone and unruly and he thinks he might have made a terrible mistake. Everything about her screams and he can’t cover his ears.

“Your bathroom is disgusting,” she says and he could momentarily kiss her because he immediately doesn’t feel like he maybe, possibly could _want_ to kiss her anymore. It’s _Tessa._ His Tessa. They don’t do that. They could never.

 

Making his face as impassive as possible, he shrugs and scoots over on the bed to make room for her, trying to act normal and convince himself of what has to be the truth. “Bachelor’s pad,” he says by way of explaining the terrible state of their sanitary facilities.

“Neither of you are bachelors, so that’s not a valid excuse,” Tess argues. “How’s Lisa by the way? Would she be okay with me staying over?”

“Why wouldn’t she?” Scott asks, just a smidge too quickly, afraid that she might have noticed the way his brain short-circuited to sheer insanity there for a second when she got out for the bathroom. “We’re not doing anything. You’re like my little sister, T. Don’t be gross.”

“Woah, okay,” she says, climbing into the bed and her mouth is grinning but he can tell by her eyes that she’s taken aback.

“I didn’t mean _gross_ ,” he says. “Just, you know. It’s not like that with us.”

“No, it’s not,” she agrees and trains her eyes at the screen as she lies down to get comfortable. “Let’s just finish the movie.”

 

“I think you’re beautiful,” he blurts after ten minutes of mindless violence on screen and tense silence between them that only keeps building. He hadn’t meant to insult her. He only wanted to not feel quite as strange with her in his clothes beside him with her cream-coloured legs having absolutely no business looking as enticing as they do, like he could run his fingertips over them softly and watch goosebumps spark up from his touch.

 

_Get it together, Moir. That’s almost your little sister you're leering at, you god fucking dammit nasty pervert._

 

“You don’t need to make up lies just to be make that gross-thing up to me,” she tells him sternly and emotionless.

“Are you kidding? I’m not lying,” he says. “You’re the prettiest girl I know in person. Have always been. And I didn’t mean _gross._ I just meant...weird.”

“I know,” she says. “Just watch the movie. I know you didn’t mean to be an asshole.”

She delivers this so dryly that he can’t help but snort out a laugh and because he’s Scott and she is Tessa, he scoops her under his arm and pulls half her soft, warm weight onto him and keeps her there. He doesn’t really think about it and he refuses to, too. This is what they do and he won’t let his raging dick-brain ruin that for him. So he focuses on more immediate things. How she moves into his embrace, how she smells nice and clean, a hint of strawberry shampoo and hair spray hitting his nose which makes him think of spins and lifts and competitions and _home._ And that’s nice. That’s who they are.

“You’re one of my best friends, Tess,” he tells her once she’s settled in, to remind her and himself. They’re _friends._ “I’m happy you’re here.”

“Me too.” And that’s the last thing she says before she falls asleep on him again.

 

Scott, despite his best attempts and more inner monologuing about how it means nothing that his heart beats up to his throat whenever her fingertips flutter on him, he does fall asleep as well. They are both dead to the credits rolling to the very end. The DVD player is left to bump its screen-saver-logo across the screen while two teenagers sleep in the ghastly blue glow of the TV, never having seen what exactly Matt Damon makes of his elusive spy past.

 

By the time Scott wakes up again, the DVD player has turned itself off and now the TV features an angry indigo blue that tints the room in a cheap R’n’B-video sheen and Scott doesn’t really know who or where he is and who is wrapped up in his arms, only that it’s warm and comfortable and he doesn’t really care for being awake right now. Then he registers “strawberry” and thinks “Tessa” and he remembers how he fell asleep. Only that when he did, she was draped half over his chest. Now, they are positively entangled and he has no idea how that happened. She is twisted into his front, her head tucked under his and one arm twined with his under her neck, while he’s spooning her, one of his legs between hers. In sleep, he had positively folded himself around her and suddenly, the proximity of it all startles him fully awake. She is not moving at all, breathing slow and steady but her...her _behind_ is still wedged firmly against his... _front-area_ there and that’s really not how they’re supposed to sleep together. They’re not even supposed to be sleeping together at all, he remembers. He was supposed to sleep in his own bed.

 

As carefully as he can, he shifts first his crotch away from her ass before anything unforgivable can happen there and then equally as measured, extracts his arms from around and under her and to his surprise, she doesn’t wake up, just unfolds where he makes space for her on the mattress until she lies there like a snoring starfish. His chest is tight with fondness and for a moment he deliberates just getting back in there. But that wouldn’t be smart, precisely because his body is tiredly and stubbornly aching for him to.

 

So instead, he climbs out of the queen-size, turns off the TV, walks around the bed in the darkness to where her head lies now and bends down to kiss her forehead the way he does sometimes after a good skate.

“Goodbye, Tutu,” he whispers. And he means it.

  
Tutu is gone. Tessa is not a kid anymore. She really, _really_ isn’t. And god dammit, if that doesn’t catapult him headfirst into for a world of trouble.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading and for every last comment, I fist-pump with happiness at every last one, I swear to god! <3


	3. Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a morning update for y'all North Americans but I hope you'll get the chance to read and review anyway.
> 
> Hide yo children, because this will earn this fic its rating. (And again, sorry TS, don't ever read this!).
> 
> Everyone else...strap in and let's do this :)

**III.**

 

“So, it’s a roughly four hour surgery,” Dr. Julia, the Skate Canada doctor, tells them in her Toronto office and Kate Virtue holds her daughter’s hand as Tessa’s world crumbles to uncertainty beside her. “But you could recuperate at home, which would likely be helpful for the recovery process.”

“And if we choose to have the surgery, how soon would be best there?” Kate asks, because Tessa doesn’t look like she trusts herself to speak.

“The sooner, the better,” says Dr. Julia. “But I would advise to take the day to think about it. The surgery doesn’t guarantee success, as frustrating as that is and it’s still a strenuous procedure on the body.”

 

“I’m having the surgery,” Tessa says as soon as they leave the doctor’s office, her voice shaky but determined and Kate is not surprised.

“Don’t you think you should really sit down and think about it, like the doctor said?” Kate tries, knowing already that it’s useless.

“I don’t need to think about it,” Tessa snaps predictably. “Retiring is out of the question. I can’t do that to Scott. I can’t do that to _me._ We’re going to the Olympics and we’re gonna win Gold.”

“Honey, you don’t owe Scott your health,” Kate tries, tentatively, knowing full well it’s a touchy subject.

“This isn’t about Scott, it’s about skating,” Tessa insists. “I want to skate. I _need_ to skate. Ah, _fuck._ ”

“Language, young lady,” Kate says and waits while Tessa stops to rub her lower legs one at a time. Walking alone is hard for Tessa these days and it breaks Kate’s heart to see her daughter in this much pain. This is why she would almost like to tell her to just retire and put her big brain to good use while her body recovers from over ten years of ice dancing and rigorous training to be the best in the world. And even if they won’t make it to the Olympics to prove that they are, she knows it and Alma knows it and Skate Canada better know it, too. So why risk any more? Hasn’t her daughter been through enough?

 

Tessa has to stop two more times until they’re in the car and it isn’t until the doors close, encasing them in the vehicle, that she finally starts crying. She does it almost soundlessly and won’t let her mother touch her either. She just cries for a while and tells her to start driving. Once Tessa has calmed down again somewhat, (at least from what Kate can tell from the corner of her eye, trying to else focus on the road because driving her home is literally all Tessa will let her do to help right now), Tessa whips out her phone and calls someone.

“Hey, it’s me,” her daughter says and on the next sentence, the crying starts right up again. “I gotta have surgery.”

There is a brief silence on the other end and then Kate can tell from the tinny speaker sound that it’s Scott who speaks back to her. “Can I just come over?” Tessa sobs into the phone after a while and Kate would lie if she said it didn’t hurt a little bit that her daughter wants to be with Scott now instead of her.

 

But again, it’s not really a surprise. Tessa won’t say it but a big reason why she’s terrified of not skating anymore is losing Scott. She doesn’t need to say it, either way, because Kate does know her daughter, thank you very much, and she knows that she loves that boy more than anything. And since Scott loves her back, even if maybe not quite the same way, it’s alright. But the times that are coming will be hard on them and Kate has her reservations about Scott in particular being able to handle them.

 

“No, I’ll call Marina and then my Mom will drop me off at yours,” Tessa says now. “Should be two hours, I think.”

Tessa ends that one phone-call and takes her sweet time before beginning the next. Talking to Marina lasts for half an hour and half-way through, Kate asks to put her on speaker, so she can keep a bit of a grip on the conversation because Tessa is a people-pleaser and Marina is a freight train that would go right over her if Kate let her in times like these. Once it’s done, Tessa looks like she’s aged ten years and sinks back into the seat, gathering up her legs and rubbing them absent-mindedly.

 

“Is it okay if you drive me to Ilderton?” Tessa eventually asks.

“Of course, sweetie, whatever you need.” Kate says.

“Thank you for coming with me today,” Tessa tells her and Kate knows by her tone that she is very aware how her mother feels about her choosing someone else’s company over hers on a day like this. “I just...need to be with him today. He’s the only one who really understands what this means to me.”

“I know, honey,” Kate says. “I know.”

 

So Kate drives her daughter to her skating partner’s house and walks her to the door to say hi to Alma and Joe while Scott breaks through both of his parents to scoop an again-crying Tessa up into his arms, petting her head and whispering something that sounds like “It’s okay, you’re okay, I’m here,” into her ear. Alma catches her eye for a second and then they watch their children hold on to each other for dear life and once again, their mothers are united in their awe of their children’s connection.

 

In awe and _concern,_ because while it’s endearing, it’s also palpably bigger than them, bigger than all five of them on the Moir’s front porch. Somehow, through the years relying completely on each other and having to get along for better or for worse, their children had formed a bond closer than that of brother and sister, closer than most marriages they know, a bond more like being two halves of the same being, a bond that seems very near sacred. Just in such a way that it’s pretty evident they’re dependant on it, so much so that when something came between them, they would probably hardly survive. And with their skating future uncertain, that’s a scarily realistic perspective because no one can really say what will happen.

 

And there is of course the matter of the whole boy-and-girl thing between them. Tessa will swear up and down the block that it’s not like _that_ with them, that her and Scott are just friends and nothing more but Kate also knows (because Alma told her who has been told by Sheri) that there had been a spin-the-bottle kiss in Canton a while ago that had been impactful enough on Scott at least that he told his cousin about it. And the fact that they are still standing entwined beside their parents after what must be a good minute now, speaks its own truth anyway. When they let go, Tessa has stopped crying and then finally, Kate gets her hug too, even if it’s brief and one for goodbye.

“Don’t you want to stay for dinner?” Alma asks her but Kate shakes her head.

“Thank you but I have to arrange some things for Tessa moving back in after the surgery,” Kate says and catches Scott’s inquisitive glance.

 

“The doctor said it would be best if I recovered at home,” Tessa tells him. “And Marina agreed. She doesn’t want people seeing me weak. Or weaker than they’ve already seen me anyway.”

“Fuck Marina,” Scott says and Joe slaps him on the shoulder immediately.

“Language,” his father warns.

“Sorry,” Scott says and tucks Tessa against his side again. “But for real.”

“We’ll see,” Kate says, by way of bidding her farewell. “I’ll be by to pick you up later, Tessa?”

“I can drive her home, no problem,” Scott offers and Kate accepts, all the better if she doesn’t have to get back out in the dark.

 

Tessa plucks herself out of Scott’s arms to hug her Mom goodbye a second time and then waves as she watches her get in the car. She feels a little bad that she wants to be with Scott now but like she had told her Mom, she can’t really stand to be anywhere else tonight. _She’ll understand_ , Tessa thinks. _Eventually, she will._ Because this is the only thing that makes her feel a smidge like herself really, the way Scott takes her hand when they move back inside and stays close to her all through dinner. How he waits on her and makes her two glasses of chocolate milk in a row, the second one to go and take to his room with them. He’s there, like he’s always been, right there in the thick of it with her, because only he knows truly what it all means.

 

By now, it’s getting dark out and Scott closes the blinds in his childhood-bedroom. Following his movements, Tessa sits down with her chocolate milk on the bed, sipping it slowly before putting it on the nightstand and tries not to panic, like she has the rest of the night.

“Do you wanna do anything? Play cards? Or watch a movie? Or do you wanna talk?” Scott asks her as he comes back from the window and sits down on the bed next to her. He smells like his room does, like body spray and fresh laundry and when she looks at him, his face is expressive, searching, _soft._ He’s trying to be good for her and she loves him for it. It doesn’t take the pain away but it’s still reassuring, like they’re still together in this.

 

“I don’t want to talk,” Tessa answers because he already knows everything there is to say. They’re both terrified, this much is clear and it goes without having to acknowledge it out loud. “I just want to lie down and not think.”

“We can do that,” he says and crawls up to her, flopping to her side and shrugging off the shoes he’s still wearing (Tessa, of course, had taken hers off by the door). She mirrors him lying down, until they’re shoulder to shoulder and ignores the brief boy-shoe-feet stink that wafts up to her.

 

Scott scrunches his face apologetically before scrambling for his blanket beneath them and puts it over their bodies, if only to “quench the stench” (he mumbles that by way of giving her a running commentary which he does sometimes when she needs cheering up and she can’t help but laugh). Once they’re both covered and their hands found each other over the duvet, he turns his head around to hers. Their eyes meet and there are so many things she wants to say to him that have nothing at all to do with skating and she can feel the air ripe with possibility. But she keeps her mouth shut.

 

It’s not like _that_ with them. Or so she has had to remind herself constantly in the last, what...five years? She’s just a kid to him, just his _kiddo_ , that’s what it feels like mostly anyway, except when it doesn’t. Those moments when he holds her at the end of a skate and his lips shiver above hers, like he could kiss her, like he wants to. But with Scott, she never knows if it’s real or if he’s just acting because of the skate. Still, whatever it is on the ice, at least he’s here with her now. And if nothing else is real, this _is._

 

“It’s all gonna be okay,” he tells her softly, still trying to put her at ease, even if he can’t know that it will be. Appreciative either way, she smiles and just wills herself to believe him. “Just stay.” He says then and she tilts her head at him as far as possible, lying down like she is. Does he mean...stay with him? “You can sleep over. I can give you a shirt and you can stay. I’d rather you stayed, T.”

“Okay,” she says merely but just lies there with him for a while because her brain is kind of exploding but she eventually texts her mother before shooing him to hunt for a shirt and boxers for her to sleep in. (To sleep in... _in his bed._ )

 

Her mother doesn’t answer until she’s in the bathroom changing. He gave her a shirt from the same skating camp like the one she had worn those times when she slept in Brandon’s room when he was out of town in the beginning at Canton and she couldn’t help but smile when he passed it over to her. Pulling it over her head and undoing her bra beneath with only slightly shaky hands, she glances down at her illuminated screen, highlighting her mother’s reply.

“Be careful, honey,” is all it says.

“What do you mean?” She types back with one hand while trying to fumble open her jeans with the other one. Tessa knows full well what her mother means.

 

She means the reason why Tessa has trouble breathing right now, why her heart beats out of her chest and why she deliberates stealing some of Alma’s make-up to cover up her puffy eyes and put gloss on her lips so he might consider kissing her. It’s the reason why her skin is flushed and her breathing is shallow. Because Scott has asked her to stay and sleep over with him. And he’s been so sweet to her since the moment she stepped onto his porch and Jessica is out of the picture as of two weeks ago and maybe...maybe he hasn’t just been acting. Maybe all of it was real, or some of it anyway. Maybe she didn’t make a complete fool of herself the last three years very obviously pining for him. Maybe he sees her as something more than just his technically lacking skating partner, after all. Maybe she’ll find out tonight. She feels light-headed just at the prospect.

 

“Just be careful,” her mother sends back. And then after a moment: “Let’s not add a teen pregnancy to that list of health concerns.”

“MOM!” She types back in all caps, scandalized and deliberates if she wants to get back at her by replying with “I’m on the pill, remember” but then decides against it (mostly, shamefully, because she doesn’t want to jinx maybe having sex with Scott) and instead goes with the usual spiel of “It’s not like that between us”, which might turn out to be a lie tonight. Hopefully. If he wants that. God knows she does.

 

When she gets back, Scott isn’t there and she settles in on the bed a little out of place. By the time he gets in, Tessa has burrowed herself in under the covers and watches him as he closes the door and then locks it.

“What’s that about?” She asks him, trying for an even voice. He turns and looks at her for a moment and then shrugs.

“Mom said you should sleep in Danny’s room, so I locked it. And I’m locking this too, so she can’t barge in here and check.” A pause then, until he adds: “Unless you wanna sleep there?”

 

“No,” she says quickly, maybe too quickly. But if he is aware, he doesn’t show it, merely steps over to his dresser and changes out of his sweater into a sleep shirt, keeping his back to her the whole time. She tries not to watch and picks up a book from his nightstand to occupy herself when he starts unbuttoning his jeans. It’s a book about sports coaching and it’s interesting enough to read a page until he’s punched out the lights and gets under the cover with her. Once it’s dark, she has no more use for the book, so she puts it away and when their hands brush, she thinks there’s a sizzle, or something, an electric current and she almost gasps but then he starts talking about Meryl and Charlie and what they’ve been up to at the Arctic Edge and the moment dissipates into thin air.

 

She should have known. This doesn’t mean _anything._ He’s just being a good friend, obviously. Of course he did not invite her to sleep over to have sex with her. How could she even think that he… He would never. He doesn’t see her that way, has made that abundantly clear over the last freaking decade. She should get the message eventually, she thinks. But there she is, in his bed, making a fool of herself hoping yet again. There’s no sex happening, none whatsoever, he calls her kiddo and he’s not even touching her now. They’re just lying in the dark talking. About Canton and the other skaters, about Marina, about his gang of friends at home, about her friends from school, about his brothers and Jordan and the frizzling marriage of her parents. About TV shows and music, about everything really.

 

Everything but her shins and her pain and that surgery that might take it all away from them, everything they have worked so hard and so long to built. Or the fact that they’re sharing a bed and she could die from how much she wants him to touch her. They don’t talk about that either. About the ache between her legs that rises with every raspy breath he takes and every time his knuckles brush hers as they’re lying side by side. She feels like an idiot. But she can’t leave, can’t do anything (couldn’t...like...seduce him if she tried, because she has no game at all and he’d probably laugh her out of the room and she’d ruin the whole relationship and everything else). No, all she can do is lie there and talk to him like they always do. But it’s not so bad. They’ve always talked. It’s second nature, so she does.

 

Eventually, after what feels like hours, the conversation winds down to short questions and one-syllable answers, until one of them drops off, she doesn’t remember who, later. She only knows that when she wakes up, it’s still night and he is wrapped around her.

 

She’s lying on her back, her limbs sprawled out, one arm high above her head, the other angled at her side and Scott is...everywhere. He’s lying sideways on her, his face on her collarbone, the upper arm draped over her ribcage, the upper leg resting across her right thigh, his foot lodged under her left leg, kind of looped around her. He’s breathing deep and low, dead to the world. And because Tessa is a pathetic woman, she brings her left arm over and rubs the one of his that is weighing down her upper body, kneading his bicep lightly between her thumb and index finger. Sleep has done nothing to mellow out her sad, needy lusting after him. (Is this sexual harassment? Should she be touching him? _Tessa, stop touching him!_ )

 

She keeps doing it for a long while. Right until he stirs just ever so slightly and she stops short. He grumbles as if in protest, while still probably very much asleep. After a moment of deliberation, she picks the circles back up that she’s been drawing into his skin (because he didn’t like it when she stopped, yeah? So she’s just doing him a solid, right?) and he sighs, nestling even closer. And that’s when she feels it. There at the apex of his thighs where they split around her leg, there’s something that wasn’t there before.

 

She knows what it is, of course, she is neither stupid nor a goddamn virgin and it isn’t like she’s never felt it before in gym practice of whatever. When he’s not wearing a jockstrap and he lifts her or gets close for this or the other step sequence or spin and sometimes, yeah, it’s natural, she can feel him (his _dick,_ there you have it) react. It’s physical, impersonal and because his ears always get beet-red and he can’t look at her after, they have this silent agreement to just act like it’s not happening. Because it doesn’t mean anything anyway. It’s a bodily-function-thing, meaningless and pedestrian. That it is happening right now doesn’t mean anything either, surely. He’s barely even conscious anyway. And maybe she should stop stroking his arm. Or shift her weight on the mattress to bump into him some more. She should stop. However his breath stalls for a moment, it doesn’t mean anything.

 

The way he maybe, potentially, slightly pushes his groin even further against her means nothing either. Neither does whatever he is doing with his hand, the way that it’s wrapped around her torso, closing around her waist and digging in. It doesn’t mean a thing. But that’s not to say it doesn’t knock all the air out of her lungs. She gasps when his fingertips dig deeper. In turn, she runs down the length of his arm with her nails grazing his skin and that’s the first time he makes a sound too pronounced to be unconscious. He’s _awake. She knew it._ He’s been awake all this time. Ha!

 

She should stop, now at the latest, or say something, but she doesn’t. She just tries to breathe normally (failing spectacularly at that, too, by the way) and then turns her back into him, on a whim. He follows easily, his arm over her shifting from her side to her stomach, the way it does when he spins her and he rocks himself up once, which causes two things to happen at the same time. One: His face slots in behind her neck, his nose bumping against her skin and his breath hitting her hot and intimate. Two: His whole business down there makes firm contact with her ass.

 

She is instantly on fire. There’s no better way to put it. Her desire for him, for his touches, for everything he is, sky-rockets and she keeps from moaning by a hair. There’s so much heat erupting, she feels like it burns up a trail across her entire body, leaving her nerves raw and on edge, hyper-sensitive to any move he makes now. _I want you so bad, I want you so bad, I want you so bad._ It’s a mantra in her head that she’s known by heart for years. _Touch me, touch me, god, please touch me._ (That’s the other one.)

 

He breathes out deeply and cants his hips, closer to her and she knows it’s on purpose. She puts her hand on his where he is cradling her belly and interlaces her fingers with his, feeling for his pressure and he gives it. They’re not talking, just doing. Maybe that’s the right way to go for once. Unthinking, she rolls her body against his, looking for friction and is rewarded by a shot of pleasure coursing through her and a growl from Scott that travels up her spine, reverberating through his bones where they are pressed close to hers. His voice is so much lower than usual, that alone is enough to make her toes curl. He’s so immediate, so there with her. God, and he smells so good, she wants to eat him whole. She can’t help but repeat the motion and this time he pushes into her in turn, multiplying the sensation by roughly a thousand.

 

What escapes her on top of a shudder is a moan she can’t stifle and that’s when he puts his mouth onto the small of her neck. She squeezes his hand tight in encouragement and he flicks his tongue out against her. It feels like an unlocked achievement. (She wants more of those.) Somehow his other hand lands on her head, digging into her hair and there’s another moan and another push from his groin and a hint of teeth added to his tongue on her neck. It’s almost too much to contain and still not enough. Her heart is beating so fast, she’s honestly glad that she’s lying down.

 

Between her legs it’s sweet torture, a tight ball of want and fire and she finds it funny how a part of her body can long for him even louder than her brain. She pushes his hand down, because she’s simply too weak to stop herself and he draws in a sharp breath behind her, his fully fledged erection twitching against her ass. (She did that, he’s hard for her, that’s _real._ And this time it sure as hell ain’t _impersonal_ , either. She wants to sing.)

 

“Fuck,” he whispers and her immediate response to him speaking for the first time is fingertips scratching into his palm as she pulls it down lower, closer to where she’s aflame. She bucks her hips up, towards their joined hands and he shivers just as much as she does, following her move with his own body, pressing impossibly harder into her now.

“Do you,” he breathes hotly into the dip of her neck, “do you want me to?”

Tessa can’t speak, so she just nods bonelessly and arches further into him, releasing his hand on a last shove downward and then his fingers are on her and even through the fabric of his boxers and her panties below, he must feel that she is soaked.

“Oh God,” he mutters, “How are you so...woah.”

 

He presses his fingers down on her, ever so lightly and she lets out a pathetic, needy whimper which might contribute to the force with which he bucks his groin against her once more and she finally can’t keep from turning her head to him anymore. He moves his fingers on her in a wave-like motion, building her up like the tide, and she opens her eyes to see him hover over her in the sparse dawn glimmer coming from the shutters, his head lifted from the pillow, eyes dark and hooded, quick breaths coming in spurts from his open mouth. He looks at her like he’s never seen her before. There’s an intense concentration painting his features into almost severity and his brows knot together every time he pushes his digits into her, getting her panties thoroughly ruined and thrusting into her ass on the same slow rhythm. Hungry, or thirsty, she can’t quite put a name to it, she licks her lips and then lets her mouth fall open and he bites his own hard before he finally snaps down with a grunt to claim her in a messy, hard kiss. (This is nothing like the one at spin the bottle, this is him kissing her like he’s goddamn _living_ for it.)

 

He tastes like sleep but she doesn’t care. She kisses him back like he’s oxygen and reaches around his arm hard at work between her legs to snake it between their bodies and feel for him. He tilts his hips backwards to help her but once she has maneuvered her hand beneath his boxer briefs to touch him (velvet on steel, soft to the touch and so solid at the same time), he bites her lips, as if to reprimand her. He bucks helplessly into her grip anyway and his hand skitters on her while he tries to collect himself. She tests around his skin, using two, three fingers to map him out and then pull at his skin a little bit and he snaps his head back from hers so suddenly, she can’t help but stare at him.

 

“Shit, I want you so bad,” he mumbles and stares into her soul, prying her heart open the way he does her body. And that’s it. She _loves_ him. She loves him so fully and so much more than he will ever understand. Any man who came before him in any capacity is already forgotten and she’s pretty sure no one who might come after will ever measure up.

 

“‘M on the pill,” she says, speaking for the first time and Scott’s face falls for a second, as if she had just said something heartbreaking.

“Tess, you don’t need to…” he drawles, hips rutting into her grip at the same time. “You don’t have to.”

And this irritates her, so she closes her whole fist around him and pumps more aggressively. “You’re not making me do anything.” She almost hisses. “But I might make you.”

“Fuck!” He _definitely_ hisses and then, faster than she knows what to do with really, he stops all ministrations on her, gets his hand off of her then plucks hers out of his pants and  rips the blanket off of their bodies. Next to go are her bottoms, which he positively rips down from her hips and then tosses away carelessly over his shoulder where he has sat down, slotted between her legs. He shuffles backward, off the bed and holds her gaze while he rolls down his underwear, freeing himself from the constricting fabric. She tells herself not to look as he pulls his shirt off his back but she does anyway. He’s straight and pointy, not scary big, just right, just delicious, and that’s the first time it really computes that this is really going to happen.

 

Maybe she should take a step back and investigate _why_ this is happening. If it’s because they love each other and it has been coming for ages or maybe also because they’re scared shitless of the future and the uncertainties and maybe just look for reassurance and distractions, or something tangible they can hold onto before everything crumbles to dust...but she doesn’t. She holds both her peace and her hand out for him where he stands, naked as the first day, and when he takes it, she pulls him on top of her.

 

She has her knees parted for him to crawl into and he holds himself up with one arm while the other dips down between them, wanders across her stomach and pushes up her shirt to fondle her breasts (and there’s just a moment where she feels self-conscious because they’re so _little,_ because next thing, he kisses each one with a tenderness so innate to him, she wants to cry). While his mouth is teasing around one nipple at a time, he moves his hand down to drench his fingers with her and butterfly-touch, test around for just the spot and she arches her body into every single one of his strokes.

“You’re so beautiful,” he whispers, coming up to look at her and then: “Are you really sure?”

She nods and he looks like starlight. Accompanied by that sweet, reassuring smile he’s given her so many times on the ice, the one that says she can do no wrong and he’ll always be there to catch her when she falls, that he will never ever drop her, he works one, two fingers into her and his eyes close for a moment while she tries to hold on to her wits as best as she can. “We have to be quiet.” He tells her, lowering himself down, taking his hand back to align them.

 

She nods again and bites her lips, watching closely what is going on down there, careful to not miss the first push he gives, the first time they do _that_ , when they’ve done almost everything else together too. On the very first thrust, Tessa’s heart simply stops beating for a moment. He’s the one who moans first though and immediately bites his own lips to keep quiet, eyes bulging until he has pushed fully inside. Their heads snap up in complete synchronicity, gazes locking in on each other and he looks at her as if she’s his tether to reality, his anchor, his _everything._ So _that’s_ what that feels like, Tessa thinks, getting accustomed to this new world where she’s having sex with Scott Moir. They feel like puzzle pieces clicking into place, like they’d always been supposed to end up coming together like this. Tessa has no idea why she’s surprised.

 

It takes a while before he starts moving, a silent acknowledgement of the boundary they’ve just crossed passing between them, both knowing that there is no coming back from this. But she wills him to move, with her mind and with her hands and a slight push up the mattress and once he does, it’s heaven in a motion. They do try really hard to not make noise and that somehow only increases the build-up of it. Every shove and push and pull, every love bite and tongue sweep, every time he loses himself in her a little, it’s more potent, more sensual, because they’re being sneaky and doing something they really, maybe shouldn’t be doing, least of all in his children’s bedroom with his parents sleeping in the same house. The thrill of the forbidden is along for the ride, cranking up and heightening their senses and they’re both driven slightly insane by it. But in the best way.

 

He’s so good at it too, _they’re_ so good at it. It’s like dancing, like flying. Tessa loves it, _loves_ having sex with Scott, loves everything about it (the sweat, the low, lewd noises he makes, the snap of his muscles as he covers her, how angry and filthy he looks at her in his passion, how he pulls her hair, how he pushes her into the mattress with enough force to damn nearly break the bed, how he checks in again and again, his face switching to affection and care in an instant, to make sure it’s good for her too, how he waits to come until she did...and no one had ever waited before, no one but herself had ever made her come before. How he empties himself into her and tells her she's his, _fucking_ his). She loves it even more because for the first time in _fucking_ ages, she has forgotten the pain in her legs, can’t even feel them, can’t feel a damn thing except for him moving inside her and that’s all that matters.

 

And if it feels this good, if it makes absolutely everything better, it surely can’t be bad, right?

 

Wrong. As she’ll learn soon enough. After a few more of those exploits that last precisely until the night that she leaves to go have surgery and Scott just drops off the face of the earth for her for two months. They’ll barely recover from the fall-out. But –unlike some people that will hear this story later on will think– not because sleeping together had been such a fantastically terrible idea but because it had showed them a future that was waiting for them. And that glimpse of the future will mess with their heads because they’re going to want it so badly, they’re gonna try time and time again to fast forward to it, to jump over the growing necessary to get there, to try and fill the blanks between them with more sex. Those blanks they will have to _work_ to fill in together with love and trust and time, by reflection, with care, compromises and compassion (as well as a shitload of therapy).

 

They will get there, eventually, but not before paying every last due for it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for everyone still aboard, your comments are LIFE! <3


	4. Four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...okay, so I know I said I was going to upload daily but here is a double-post. Because I have the chapter done and I am impatient :D
> 
> Thank you guys so much for your amazingly kind words for the last chapter! Each word gave me life, cleared my skin and watered my crops!  
> You are the best!
> 
> (And sorry in advance for the angst in this one...)

**IV.**

It’s a total accident that Tessa is in London at all that weekend. Originally, she’d been scheduled to do a photoshoot in Vancouver but then the execs had called to tell her it was pushed to the week after because the photographer had gotten sick and that was that. So she’d stayed in London and got some very overdue Christmas shopping done, flaking only on Scott’s present because these days it was hard to know what he needed (at least concerning things that could be bought with little complication at your friendly local department store).

 

So really, it’s totally by chance that she even picks up her phone when Julie calls. She’s from Scott’s old friends gang from Ilderton and Tessa had forgotten her number was even saved in her phone.

“You got Tessa, hi,” she says upon taking the call, wondering why the hell _Julie_ would call her and at 10pm to boot.

“Hey Tessa, um, sorry to bother you so late. I was, uh, wondering if by chance you’re in the area right now?” Julie says, sounding distressed, even through the tinny speakers.

“I’m in London, yeah, what’s up?” Tessa asks, concern creeping into her veins at the other woman’s tone. If Julie is calling it must be about Scott and if she sounds like this, it might be bad and the myriad of bad things that can happen to a person are too daunting to ponder, not when Scott might be the person hurt. That can’t be. No matter how difficult things are between them right now, she couldn’t...if anything happened to him, Tessa would _die_ (and that’s sadly not hyperbole, it’s just a cold hard fact).

 

“I know this sucks and if you can’t, it’s fine, but could you maybe come pick up Scott?” Julie sounds mortified and Tessa is instantly completely confused.

“What?” She asks. He’s a grown man, they haven’t spoken in days, hell, they barely speak when they see each other, not about meaningful things anyway. Why should she drive out to Ilderton now and pick him up? And what for? And take him where?

“The short version is we’re having a Christmas-punch-get-together and Scott kind of went in, well, a bit hard and he kinda...broke Mike’s nose.”

“He did _what_?” Tessa hisses and already scrambles for her car keys in her purse.

“They were fighting about something but nobody really knows what happened and Scott is just..you know, kind of out of it,” Julie says, apologetical and like she, too, has no idea what the fuck happened there really. “He’s been talking about you, so I thought I’d give you a ring and see if you can get him. I really don’t wanna send him to his parents like that, they’re already so worried.”

 

“Why are they worried?” Tessa asks, thinking that it’s weird that she has to.

 _What happened to us, Moir_ , she thinks. _Where did we go wrong last year?_ (She knows exactly where they went wrong. Where _she_ went wrong.)

“Well about the drinking obviously,” Julie says and Tessa can hear the shrug, as if the other was saying ‘You know this, you are aware of it, Tessa, surely. (Because you totally know what’s going on in your best friend’s life right now, because you’re totally fine with each other and your relationship is not broken at all)’.

“Oh yes, that,” Tessa says and wouldn’t even buy her own bullshit. And it isn't like she hadn't _known_ , it isn't like Alma hadn't called her to ask if anything bad had happened to Scott, why he had been so very sad since Sochi and if getting the Silver was really the whole reason. Of course it wasn't but Tessa couldn't get herself to say it and find out just how bad it got with him. How much he was drinking, how much he was spiralling, so she just never asked. She tried to be oblivious to it. Hard. With varying degrees of success.

“I’ll be over in fifteen, just put him out on the front porch and I’ll collect him quietly,” she says into her phone.

 

“Oh, it won’t be quiet, I can tell you that much,” Julie says and sounds like she’s aged seventeen years in the span of that sentence and Tessa can hear banging on a door in the background, faraway music and some yelling. “You know Kevin’s house?”

“Yeah, two rights down from the rink, right?” Tessa checks.

“Yup,” Julie affirms. “That’s where we’re at. Thank you for doing this.”

“It’s Scott,” Tessa shrugs, a mix of resignation and fatalism. “He’s my responsibility, too. Comes with the partner territory.” ( _And I’ve been a crappy friend to him since pretty much Sochi, a terrible human really, so I owe him at least this_ , she thinks. But she doesn’t say that out loud.)

 

Exactly thirteen minutes later, Tessa pulls into Kevin’s driveway and stops just in time to not run over her skating partner who makes a bee-line for her car when he sees it, banging on the hood like an uncoordinated toddler. _What the fuck, Scott?_

“THE VIRTCH!” Is the first thing she hears when she opens her door, the icy night cold crashing in like a slap to her face and she’s barely out of her seatbelt, when he’s plucked her from her seat, wrapping her up in his arms and pulling her out of the car and into a hug. He smells like booze and sweat and blood. He _sounds_ like he’s having the time of his life but when he lets her go, she can see the wildness in his eyes and behind the schnaps-y glassiness there’s turmoil. He’s in bad shape, she can tell by a glance.

“They kicked me out of the party,” he tells her unnecessarily and grins his lopsided ‘Love me––I’m a mess but oh so charming’-smile (and she hates that this still fucking works on her, even after all this time, even at this hour, even with him in _this_ state). “I didn’t _behave_.”

 

He uses air-quotes for the “Behave” and that’s when Tessa sees the dried blood on his hands. Scott follows her eyes and shrugs: “’S not mine.”

“Hi, Tessa,” says Julie now, stepping away from the porch to hug her briefly and Tessa honestly can’t remember when she has seen her last. Probably at their “Victory” party in Ilderton after Russia. She’s pregnant, Tessa can tell even through the thick winter coat she’s wrapped up in. _Wow._ Leave it to Scott to make a pregnant woman care for his sorry havoc-causing-drunk-behind.

“Mike went to the hospital,” Julie tells her, by way of bringing her up to speed while Scott kicks the grovel under his feet, humming some Top Forty song like he isn’t even listening. “He was so mad when he left he nearly called the cops but we talked him out of it.”

“Jesus,” Tessa says. “What the hell happened?” She asks Julie this because Scott has simply noped out and wandered off into the shadows of the nearby bushes (and she doesn’t have to wait for the sound of it to know he’s relieving himself, probably peeing his name into the snow. That’s Too-Drunk-Scott for you. Always a good time, that one).

 

“No one knows really,” Julie says. “Just that by the end of it, they were both bleeding and wrestling in the snow hitting each other and Mike’s nose looked like it might fall off. Wasn’t pretty. Scott’s got a pretty nasty cut at his hairline too. I tried to clean it out and put a bandaid on it but he kept peeling them off. I gave up after the third. Here’s his stuff,” Julie tells her, taking a detour for the porch and coming back with a duffel bag. From what Tessa can tell it’s just his wallet, phone (which is switched off) and keys. This is ridiculous, she feels like she’s been handed her unruly son’s school bag from his teacher, collecting him after being suspended for throwing a tantrum.

“Thanks Julie,” Tessa says, trying to mask her shock at the situation that is very slow to sink in as best as she can. “Thank you for calling me.”

“Anytime,” the other woman smiles, albeit a little awkwardly. “It’s good seeing you, would’ve been nice under different circumstances but, eh. That’s life, right?”

“Yeah,” Tessa agrees and hears Scott rip up his  jeans zipper, curse heavily and then rip it up again. “It’s good seeing you, too.”

 

It takes both of them, one tiny dancer and one sturdy pregnant lady, to get Scott Moir into Tessa’s passenger seat, mostly because he starts arguing about going back inside to say goodbye to the guys. He doesn’t relent until Tessa says “So god help me, Scott Moir, you will sit your butt down right now for me. You hear this? For _me_!” That’s when he grumbles and sits down, rudely pulling the door shut in Julie’s face.

“’S not fair,” he mutters and crosses his arms. “That’s low.”

Maybe it is, because calling in those kinds of debts, those “You owe me this now because it’s you and me and us” is a last resort on any day and they usually try not to invoke those. But desperate times and all that.

 

Tessa puts her head out of her door to properly say goodbye to Julie and apologize again and the other woman just nods in understanding. It’s been a wild night, apparently. For all of them. (Although the wild portion of Tessa’s has just started.)

“Congratulations by the way,” Tessa says before shutting her door. “On the baby.”

“Thank you, it’s a girl,” Julie smiles and rubs her round belly lightly and Tessa ponders for just a second that Julie is almost exactly her age and it’s really peculiar how they can lead such terribly different lives.

 

Getting Scott home (to _her_ home that is, because _yes, oh God, don’t let Alma see him like this_ ) is a Task with a capital T. Not so much the drive to her house, because he just sits there fumbling with his jacket zipper and swaying at every bump and curve on the road (and he reeks of alcohol and he’s dirty and half covered in snow and, _good Lord_ , what is happening to him? How had she missed this?). The biggest challenge isn’t even getting him out of the car, he does that on autopilot, but when she attempts to make him follow her inside her house, he stops short and won’t move.

“Scott, come on,” she says. “It’s freezing, let’s go inside.”

“Why?” He asks, testingly and looks at a spot roughly behind her left ear.

“Mostly because it’s _freezing_ ,” Tessa says, pulling up her nose, the cold pinching and pricking her like needles covered in splinters.

“I wanna go back,” he says. “I was having fun.”

“Evidently,” she says, gesturing at his sorry state of dress and face and general _everything._ Scott remains, stalling like a stubborn horse. There’s a fresh line of blood running down his right temple. Jesus, he’s a goddamn mess and the guilt she feels at the sight of him would make her break down and cry if she didn’t have a job to do. “Come inside,” she repeats.

 

“No,” he remains. And he always gets down on _her_ for being the stubborn one. “You can’t make me, you’re not the boss of me.”

“Excuse me, is this pre-school?” She huffs, exasperated and walks up to him, pulling at his arm and while he may be drunk and retired, he’s still strong and she can’t make him move an inch. (Her hands are so cold, why didn’t she wear gloves?) She pulls at him again anyway.

“Leave me alone, Tessa,” he gruffs, tries to shake her off and she wants to scream in frustration. She actually deliberates slapping him for a brief second but then, because she knows she could _never_ , thinks of the next best thing.

 

She pries her cold, numb hands from his arm and puts one on either side of his face (smearing his blood across his right cheek in the process and _ugh, gross_ ), plants a crushing, open-mouthed kiss on his lips and doesn’t pull away until he kisses her back for a second (or two, maybe two but definitely not longer). He tastes like whiskey and regret to come in the morning but that’s not what this is about right now. It’s about the way he looks at her when she breaks away and lets go of him. Like she had indeed slapped him. Which was what she wanted.

 

“What was that for?” He asks, puzzled and befuddled.

“To sober you up,” she snaps. “Did it work?”

He seems to deliberate this for a moment, until: “Somewhat.”

“Good.” She says.

“Tessa, what does that-” He begins but she cuts him off, because _no._ That’s not the conversation they’re gonna have now.

“You scared the shit out of me,” she practically barks at him, her breath coming out in thick white clouds. “What is wrong with you? You broke someone’s _nose_ out there, you know? And not just anybody’s. You got in a fight with _Mike_?! Of all people? He’s like the world’s most dedicated pacifist!”

“He’s also the world’s greatest kitchen psychologist who apparently knows exactly how I should run my life,” he scoffs, language still slurred and he’s nowhere near sober but at least he looks at her now. “He’s worse than you.”

“Uncalled for,” she tells him with a glare and he has the grace to bow his head sheepishly. “Come on, let’s get you cleaned up, you’re filthy.”

 

He can barely walk but somehow she gets him into her hallway and up the stairs (and she’s going to have to clean his muddy shoe prints from her hardwood floors in the morning).  
“Where are you taking me?” He asks her when they pass her guest bedroom.

“To the shower, you need one,” she declares and bullies him into the master bathroom, immediately pulling his jacket zipper down and wrestling him out of it. There is dirt even underneath it. How dedicatedly exactly did he fight his friend Mike in Kevin’s backyard?

 

“Tessa,” he protests but only verbally, he’s so disoriented, he has to hold on to the shower cabin, only letting go for the moment it takes Tessa to pry his sweater and shirt over his head. He’s gained some weight, that much she can tell because she knows that body of his intimately, knows it as well as her own, better in many ways even. It’s not bad as a fact but if it’s from drinking, maybe it is bad as a sign. She truly had no idea that it’s gotten this bad. He always told her he was fine, that he was enjoying retirement, that he had a swell time with Kaitlyn, that everything was _just peachy, Tess._

 

When she fumbles with his belt buckle, that’s when he uses that free arm he doesn’t need to steady himself with to catch her wrists in his hand. Mind you, she could shake that grip easily but she allows him the moment of resistance.

“Whatta you doin?” He positively slurs.

“Do you want to get in there with your jeans on?” She challenges.

“You wanna...take all my clothes off?” He asks back, eyes wide. “D’you wanna put me in the shower like a child?”

“Can I trust you to not fall in there and die in a puddle?” She’s unrelenting and he has to concede the point. “So stop being a baby, there’s nothing under here that I haven’t seen.”

 

And really there isn’t. Once he’s naked, she takes stock of things briefly. (And getting him out of his pants is a walk in the park in contrast to the effort it takes to get him out of his socks––and yeah, she’s crouching for that and yeah her face is pretty much in his junk and yes, if he wasn’t drunk and disgusting right now, that would mess with her head, but as it is, it doesn’t.) He’s okay mostly, some bruises on his thigh where she supposes he fell down into the snow, a nasty bruise and some grovel on his hands and wrists, that cut on his forehead that has stopped bleeding again but his face is still covered in it and the makings of a black eye that’s gonna hopefully disappear overnight (or at least before the next show they’re gonna skate).

 

“Jus’ for the record,” he drawles. “This is rock bottom.”

“What are you talking about?” She asks him, holding onto his shoulder to steady him while opening the shower door with her free arm.

“For my ego,” he sighs. “I’m standing here butt-ass-naked and you look at me like I’m a crossword puzzle you don’ care for much. What’s the ones you don’t like...Sodu..”

“Sudoku,” Tessa says. “And stop pitying yourself, it’s not cute.”

“You’re mean,” he complains, furrowing his brow as she pushes and shoves him under the shower. “Why are you so mean?”

“Because you’re being a giant child,” she tells him and then flicks the knob to cold water and he shrieks.

“Cold, so so cold,” he gasps. “Don’t look at my dick!”

“Scott,” she groans. “I know what it looks like in literally every fucking state and I really have better things to do than sneak a peek at your genitals which, and I’ll say it again, I have _seen._ Up close. Many times. Stop whining. Get sober.”

“ _Genitals_ ,” he repeats dumbly. “Wow.”

“I’m not gonna look at your cock, Scott,” she bites, glaring at him brazenly because _fuck him._ “Better?”

He blinks at her, slowly, swallows and then: “Okay, now you _could_ look.”

“You’re disgusting,” she says and tries very hard not to laugh because for some reason she still finds him hysterical even when he’s being an inappropriate asshat. “Turn around, face the wall.”

 

She grabs his hand and puts it on the wall so he can hold himself up and makes the spray a little warmer for him, but just so, because he’ll be better cooling off and he kinda deserves it. Plus she’ll turn it up in a minute, she just needs to get out of her coat, blouse and pants and in there with him, since he can’t be trusted to do this himself. Once she’s climbed in, still wearing her black bra and mismatched hot pink hipsters, he turns back around from where he’d held on to the tiles before and looks very perplexed as to why she’s there with him suddenly.

 

“Why do _you_ get to keep your underwear on?” He asks her because that’s apparently the first thing that comes to mind.

“‘Cause its my house,” she says simply and reaches for the shower gel. “Hold on to something.” She orders him. He chooses her shoulders, she plucks his hands away and puts one on either side of the cabin instead. Now he looks like a fucked up version of Da Vinci’s famous anatomy study...or a very indisposed Jesus...or, like...differently indisposed anyway.

 

Tessa puts some shower gel in her palms and runs her hands down his arms, a decidedly weird callback to their intimacy and grounding exercises–and while they’re certainly not grounded, it’s at least intimate. And then some. Only that this was probably never the desired outcome of that. Not any of it, really. But _c’est la vie_ , here they are. Scott watches her in silence as she soaps him down, leaving his privates untouched because as disgusting and smelly as he is, she doesn’t trust herself not to do something really bad and unwise if her hands got anywhere near that and the air between them is getting stuffier by the minute as it is. She moves on quickly to his head, taking her loofa to help wash off the blood from the left half of his face and cleans along the edges of the cut he got, careful after when she shampoos his hair to not get any product in contact the wound.

 

Then she rinses it all out and it’s done. He’s clean, that’s a start. She pushes the knob down again, cutting of the steady water stream and the sudden silence is deafening. She’s about to step out of the shower when he grabs her wrist tight enough to bruise, holding her back, and they lock eyes. His are dark and hungry and somehow that beat-up, ruggedly-handsome thing suddenly works for him. Tessa swallows past the lump in her throat and can’t keep from licking her lips, her gaze finally dropping to his business (and he’s not _that_ hard but he could be, quickly, she knows).

 

She forces her eyes back to his, forces her head to shake, ever so slightly. Because it’s wrong, they can’t. Not again. He has a girlfriend and a wonderful one at that. One that by all accounts and Tessa’s own observations makes him happy when they’re together. (And yeah, he’s still drinking more than she knew apparently but it’s not like she was there for that either, so she could hardly blame Kaitlyn for letting him get off the rails like that. If anybody, it should’ve been Tessa there with him to keep him from setting his life on fire. But she hadn’t been. She’s been out scouring Canada for things to say _yes_ to after all she had for Scott were _maybe’s_ first and a devastating _no_ later.)

 

Scott holds her eyes the way he holds her wrist, steady and severely but he makes no further move, just holds the moment. Because it definitely is one. (In her head, the same three words echo that always have: _I want you, I want you, I want you._ ) And they could do it now, they could fuck each other raw against the shower wall and then in her bed and six ways to Sunday into their mutually assured destruction. But they won’t. That’s a choice they’re making now. Because on some level they must both know they wouldn’t survive this again. So finally, he let’s her go and she steps out of the cabin, holding her hand out in turn to help him out.

 

“You know where the towels are,” she says and they both deftly ignore the raspiness of her voice. “I’m gonna put some clothes out for you in the guestroom. Freshen up, brush your teeth, there’s a new toothbrush in the cabinet. Yell if you need anything.”

And she leaves him with that because she has to get out of there before she can finish off murdering their relationship for good.

 

She’s in her pyjamas in her bedroom when he knocks at her open door, hair still damp and in his boxer briefs and an old shirt that was probably his once upon a time.

“Can I come in?” He still sounds vaguely intoxicated but not as sharply anymore. He seems diffused now, mellow and she can tell by the look on his face that he is getting sentimental. So they’ve finally reached the outskirts of weepy-drunk Scott, that’s a place he usually gets to only after severe amounts of red wine.

“Sure,” she says still and makes room for him on her bed. He follows the invitation and sits down gingerly beside her, putting his back against her headboard so softly you’d think it would break. “Feeling more sober?” She checks.

 

“A little,” he says. “But I’m still buzzed as fuck, Tess. I don’t really know what I’m doing.” He looks at her for a moment and then away and steels himself with a deep breath. He’s gonna _talk_ now, she can tell. (They haven’t done that in months and months.) “And I’m terrified of fucking everything up and look, I know you’re not into me and you don’t want that anymore and there’s Kaitlyn and Sochi and the last fucking year and I’m not sexy like this, I know, I’m needy and pathetic and I’ve been drinking a lot, like a _lot_ , T. Enough to scare myself and I don’t really, fully understand why yet but I’m definitely a mess.”

 

He is talking to the far wall and Tessa’s heart is breaking, feeling so much of his turmoil and confusion. Also, she is so afraid that at the end of his monologue (which this is sure to become) there will be a question that she has no answer to, because she has not dared to ask herself about it, not after everything she’s done, not after the decisions she’d made in the last year.

 

“And I’m trying to be better,” Scott says, half-drunkenly rambling on. “I’m trying with Kait, I’m trying with that black fucking retirement hole that keeps sucking me in. I’m trying so hard. But fuck, if I don’t want you the same fucking way I did in Russia. And that’s killing me. I want you _right now_ , this minute and every minute, really. Like I could set myself on fire. And I know that’s not what you want. So I’m terrified, I’m scared shitless that this is never going away. That I can’t look at you right ever again, that eventually I’ll be too twisted to skate with you and skating is all that ever mattered, it’s all that I’m _good_ at, it’s all that I have left really. And I’m terrified that I can’t have a fucking functioning relationship, not with you and not with anyone else, that I’ll fuck things over with Kaitlyn because that’s just what I do, apparently, and that I can’t ever get married or have a family because I just can’t get over you and this and everything.”

 

“And I know that’ll sound to you like I’m blaming you but I’m not, I’m just...I don’t know, trying to speak my truth here. I don’t ask anything of you, this is _my_ problem, I know that. I’m fucked up. And I still want you. And I’m trying. That’s all I can tell you. Everything else is...too big for me. I don’t know who I am anymore. I was always sure, before, you know. I was Scott, you were Tessa, we were Virtue-Moir, and that’s what we were good at, what I knew how to do. I could skate and you needed me. But you don’t need me anymore. Which makes the exact number of people who need me _zero._ I don’t...I don’t know what to do with the rest of my life and I don’t know how to make anybody else need me and that scares the shit out of me. Because that’s it then, isn’t it? I’m done. With everything. At twenty-seven.”

 

“Scott,” is all Tessa manages to say. Because it’s too much, he is right. And she doesn’t know how to handle it. They shouldn’t be alone with these kinds of conversations, they should be under supervision. With their army of shrinks and mental coaches and marriage counselors. They should be told how regular people function. And they shouldn’t be left alone, that’s basically it.

 

“You’re not done. And you’re needed, you’re so…” She tries to form a coherent sentence but everything he said is still clumsily, chunkily processing, too big to fit her filters, like a brick thrown into a meat-grinder. “You’re so needed.” She repeats, uselessly because this is the one thing she knows to be irrevocably true. Because no matter what he thinks, she _does_ need him. She’ll never not need him, there would never be a day where she wouldn’t need to know that he was alive somewhere in the world. And it wouldn’t take any more than that. She could handle herself, she was fighting to, was working hard to find who she was outside of skating and outside of loving him like a mad person, so she didn’t need much from him outside of that, this much was true too. She didn’t need to see him every day, or talk, or know about his budding drinking problem, apparently, but she _needed_ to know he was alive, that he was there. She needed that because if he ever wasn’t, she wouldn’t survive. _So there’s that, Scott Moir. I need you, I need you to_ live. For some reason, though, she doesn’t tell him that.

 

“There are so many people who need you,” she says instead, because she can’t stand the thought of him believing he is unneeded, unloved or unseen in the world. “Your family, your nieces and nephews, Kaitlyn. And me too, Scott. And if you think that’s not true, you’re insane. I needed you all my life, you’re my best friend, that’s not gonna just stop.”

“‘I gotta get away from you for a while’,” Scott says, quoting herself back to her, those terrible words she had said back in April, those that had catapulted them into whatever it was they were now. “‘I have to know that I’m not dependant on you, that I don’t need _you_ to be _me.’_ ”

 

“Scott,” she breathes and takes his hand where it lies between them. “That came out wrong, I told you that it came out wrong two days after the fact...I just…”

“I know,” he says. “I don’t need you to apologize. I get it. I got it then, I get it now.”

“I do need you,” she repeats, just to make sure he hears her. “I need you to be okay, mostly. And all that other stuff…” She looks down at their hands and her breath wavers for a second, like it had in the shower, like it does in choreo rehearsal every other day, like it does sometimes somewhere, just because, for no reason. “You’ve got a good thing going with Kaitlyn. We’re still hurting, the two of us. We’re not...it wouldn’t work.”

 

Scott looks at her intently and she knows that he’s gearing up to say something but usually when he does this, he chickens out at the last second and makes a joke instead. She is intimately aware of that because it’s her modus operandi as well, to the T, they’re so similar in that, it’s eerie. But this time, he says it, to her surprise.

“That doesn’t sound like you wouldn’t want to,” he says, quietly, low and testing.

“I never said I wouldn’t _want_ it,” she tells him honestly. “I said I need to figure myself out. That was always about me, never about you. You and me, that’s special. It’ll always be special. And you’re the most amazing person I’ve ever met and you know I’m, God, Scott, that I’m _so_ into you, I’ve always been into you. I will always want...I could _always..._ but we shouldn’t. You got Kaitlyn, I got...my projects and my figuring-myself-out and you...you should maybe try and work through why you’re drinking so much. And we still have shows to skate, promises to keep.”

 

“And miles to go before we sleep,” he says, smiling at her weakly, referencing a quote on an art print she had given him for some birthday that came and went, she had no idea where it was or if he’d even kept it (but then again, it did sound like he’d had the words handy and present in his mind so maybe it _is_ hanging on some wall somewhere).

“And miles to go before we sleep.” She repeats.

“I love you,” he tells her, looking deep into her eyes and she knows he means in every way. Friend and friend, partner and partner, man and woman, and inside still, an outgoing little rascal and a tiny, shy ballerina with all their infinite potential.

“I love you, too,” she says and means in every way as well.

 

She loves the self-deprecating jokester and the cocky braggadocio, the sensitive artist and the loudmouthed jock, the selfish competitor in him as well as his generous, freely giving, boundless kindness, the sexless best buddy and the man who pushes into her with all he is and sets her skin on fire, the one who makes her feel like a proper, grown woman, in touch with every cell in her body as they radiate toward his skin, aching to become _one._ She adores the innocent, precious boy in him and the lion, the ferocious, passionate monster contained within his chest. She loves every inch of him, every facet of his personality from the murky shadows to the most glowing light (of which he has enough to blind her) and she still wants him more than she can say. But it’s not right. Not right now. Or they’re going to burn each other out for good, smother that fire within themselves by multiplying it with each others and leave their charred corpses behind, like the lovers of Pompeii, because they’d wanted too much from each other, were running too fast, with mouths searching and kissing and swallowing each other that were just too hungry. They were Icaruses, aiming too high, the both of them together and it was time to come down.

 

 _Let’s not fly into the sun, my love,_ she thinks. _Let’s save each other_.

 

Scott doesn’t move but Tessa feels like she needs to, so she shifts down on the mattress and opens her arms to him. He follows the invitation almost instantly, shrugging down on the bed until he’s beside her and she nods down to her chest, indicating it’s fine for him to fold himself onto her, tuck his head under her chin and be held.

“What happened to us, Tessa?” Scott asks like they both don’t know exactly what happened.

 

Their career had imploded (if you can call getting a Silver medal imploding, anyway), their support system in Canton had been crumbling for years before that, they’d pulled each other through by their hair but then when the moment came, after, to give a name and a perspective to what they were to each other (after sleeping together again because they were stupid like that), Tessa had pulled the plug. And broken his heart (and then her own in the aftermath, but she didn’t know that until the day he’d introduced her to Kaitlyn with stars in his eyes). She pulls him closer now, trying to breathe through the tightness in her body and then she hears his whimper. He’s crying. But that’s alright, she’s crying too. She feels suspended in the air, holding onto him is the only thing that feels real. She’s scared of what is happening to them, what has been happening to them for a year, or longer, maybe, but for the first time in her life, she understands what they have to do to finally really work _together._

 

They lie like that for a while, crying silently, holding each other tight, like two children on a lifeboat after their ship sunk and really, that’s all they are. Two children trying to swim through the rubble of their life together. Despite all attempts unwilling and unable to do it alone. When Scott sniffs and rustles on her, Tessa hugs him tighter, loathe to let him go.

“Just stay,” she whispers and tugs him in closer.

“Tessa,” he warns, voice rumbling and sensual, for the second time that night.

(He still would. She still would. They still _won’t._ )

 

“No, I mean, let’s try this, for real. Being friends. Let’s just go to sleep and figure out how we can be good for each other without all these complications in the morning,” she argues. “No more funny business. No more screwing around, no more cheating. No more lying. Just...honesty and taking care of each other. Properly this time.”

“So we’ll do the fucking platonic for real?” Scott mutters, his lips brushing her skin.

“The platonic, without the fucking, yeah,” she whispers, trying to ignore the shiver coursing through her. (Eat your heart out, Compartment Syndrome, _this_ is gonna be a lifetime of pain.) But it’s better this way.

 

They need to figure out how to be partners without having sex and without being mad at each other for not having sex, or having sex, or having sex with other people. They have to love each other enough to not make love anymore. It’s the only way they’ll ever work their shit out together. Before they can ever hope to be anything else...they have to figure out how to be friends. Learn how to love each other without destroying each other, learn how to be a team again, how to be _partners._ Without all the fucking and the loving and the pulling and pushing screwing things over. Just them, trying to feel each other out, trying to be what the other person deserves.

 

So they settle in, under her blanket, side by side and eventually they switch, so she’s lying on him, maybe just so he can kiss the top of her head. This is how it’s gonna work. It makes no sense trying to find their way out of that horrible no good year by themselves when everything else in their lives they only got through together. They’re gonna do this together too. It’s a start, there in her bed in the dark. They don’t have sex, they don’t touch each other further than two close friends would, they don’t sigh deeply, or moan or roll their bodies into each other trying to tease out a reaction. They just lie there and breathe. In and out, until they’re the same.

 

In the end, they fall asleep together, linked and entwined, desperately in love with each other but finally smart about it and in the morning, they resolve and commit to being just friends. It’ll take a while, it’ll be awkward and weird and painful at times but it’ll work out.

 

(For a good while at least, a couple of months, nearly a year, before they’re right back on their bullshit...but by then, the work they’ve put in will have reaped its rewards...enough this time, to finally make them work for real, enough for their lives to finally be so big on their own they’ll manage to contain the love they have for each other between the two of them, that love that is so much bigger than them, so much bigger than anything else they could possibly imagine).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Also help, I have started talking in brackets in real life.)
> 
> I have decided to add this to my series "Together" which puts this now into the BEHAVE! universe (check out the series if you like, it is a work in progress!) and serves as a collection of additional scenes surrounding the main stories in this particular series.
> 
> but for a different take on what happened after this chapter and before the next, can also read "It Happens In Boston" right over here: https://archiveofourown.org/chapters/33916101 
> 
> It fits with this continuity and will give you even more fodder until the next chapter tomorrow :)


	5. Five

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all endlessly for your wonderful comments and thoughts, I can't tell you how much it means to me!  
> So here, for y'alls lunch breaks maybe, the next daily update...the last one is coming tomorrow.
> 
> This here is mostly fluffy, to make up for the pain of the last chapter. Here, we'll find our two heroes after PyeongChang...I hope you like it :)
> 
> PS: Full-disclosure: I stole a line from the Wookipedia entry on Force-Bonds. Ten points for Gryffindor if you find it ;)

**V.**

They skate in the city where they won their first Gold on the last night of the Canadian Stars on Ice tour on Tessa’s 29th birthday with two more Golds each from the games in PyeongChang, Korea, sitting and waiting for their return in Tessa’s (their) home back in London. They hug (on-ice) and kiss (off of it) and meet a seemingly endless line of people who came out just to see them. They’re bringing gifts and their smiles and support, so happy to meet them and so alight with affection for two little kids from Ontario who still don’t really understand how any of it,  their career or their partnership, can elicit so much second-hand love. But they feel it all the same.

 

After the last meet and greet of the tour is over, Scott has given precice directions to the rest of Team Canada that are being put in motion: get their stuff, get on the road and drive to Vij’s Restaurant (an upscale Indian place with a private room he booked weeks in advance for them to all celebrate Tessa) and to _be there on time._ That’s all Tessa knows as they’re being led discreetly along the side of the nearly empty restaurant. Due to the late hour, there’s maybe three tables in the main room still occupied and neither of those is paying them any attention. The private dining room itself is smartly decorated, more big city elegance than run-of-the-mill Indian decor (there’s one Ganesha bust sitting on a sideboard at the far wall but even that is sort of streamlined and crisp). Tessa loves it.

 

Since most of them arrived at the same time, they’re really just waiting for Patrick and his girlfriend before everyone is settled, with full Champagne glasses in their hands and Scott stands up to give a toast (he looks so handsome and put together, she can’t help but be a little bit proud, because yes, she might take him shopping on occasion but most of the time these days, he dresses himself and dresses sharply and can tie his own tie–even if he makes her do it more often than not because they both like it that way).

 

“Thank you guys for coming, we know it’s very late” he starts, it’s pushing one in the morning because it was a late show that night. “And thank you for celebrating with Tessa tonight who probably thanked all of you already while I wasn’t paying attention." (Pause for laughter.) "It’s been quite a year, hasn’t it?” He grins and looks into the round and everybody is mumbling their agreement with smiles on their faces and Tessa is so happy she could burst at the seams. And then Scott turns to look at only her. “T, every night is your night but this one especially. Thank you for being amazing last year and all the years before that. Happy Birthday!”

The others echo and then break out into a horrible, off-key rendition of the song (Javi croaning on top of them all with the spanish version) and Tessa cringes but cries a little at the same time.

 

The dinner is lovely, much like the whole day has been. It started with Scott taking her to collect the birthday cake he had ordered for her (perfect with donut-candles he’d bought himself), a giant ton of sweet birthday messages (from family to fans, from calls to cards to a twenty minute video of women from all over the world saying the sweetest things about her) and went on with a great show in front of a great crowd that had bled into this so far wonderful night among friends that felt like family. Everything is wonderful, everything is right in place. Finally.

 

She switches her Chicken Korma with Scott’s Palak Chicken halfway through as per their agreement at ordering and at the end of their meal, they both shamelessly pick out spinach out of each other’s teeth.

“We’re still literally eating, guys,” says Meagan exasperatedly two seats over and Tessa knows her and Scott share the same sheepish sorry-shrug-face in reply.

“You’re acting like this is new behavior,” Patrick chimes in and the others nod their assent. “You guys are fucking weirdos.”

“Woah there with the cursing, Chiddy,” Scott bellows. “That’s not how we raised you.”

“You’re one to talk, you’ve got the most foul mouth here,” Patrick says, rolling his eyes good-naturedly. “But thanks anyway, _Dad.”_

 

Patrick doesn’t care much for Scott being all patronizing, Tessa knows it, but the joke has been running too long for it to not be a little funny. And she laughs because sadly, Scott is still damn hilarious to her, no matter what joke he makes, really.

 

Tessa gets gifts from them too, even if she had asked them not to get her anything but there’s still earrings and a spa voucher and body wash (that was Buttle, deftly ignoring that Tessa has a sponsoring deal with Nivea and could cover her entire house in lotion if she so desired). The most wonderful gift is the group gift from the girls though, led by Kaitlyn who apparently took point on organizing it. “It’s a donation in your name to Doctors Without Borders. We thought this would be nice because you already have everything,” the blonde says and Tessa thanks them all enthusiastically for a present expertly chosen. Because it’s pretty true. She kind of does already have _everything._ At least that’s what she thinks when she sits back down next to Scott and he takes her hand under the table.

 

Not so long after, one by one, Scott watches Team Canada bid their farewells (as instructed) and when only Kaetlyn and Gabby are left, Tessa turns to him and asks if they want to head back to the hotel as well.

“They’re kinda leaving for us, babe, to give us a little privacy” Scott tells her under his breath, right before Kaet and Gabby announce their retreat as well, bags and jackets already on. He has planned this in detail, this whole evening, and all of their friends excusing themselves no later than three in the morning is part of that plan (which considering the tour they’ve had is not a task to ask of anybody, really). He can’t wait to see Tessa's face once she sees what he’s come up with.

 

Once the girls have walked out of the door, the restaurants Chef walks in, the one who had taken their orders earlier _personally._ He’s a round, happy-looking Indian man with greying curls and thick glasses and Tessa is pretty sure that they have met before at some function or the other around the town.

“Scott,” he says warmly and walks over.

“Vikram,” Scott greets the man and pats him on the shoulder like they’re ancient friends while the other man turns his attention to Tessa.

“And the lovely birthday girl,” he says and shakes her hand. “I think we have met a few years ago at a gala we catered. It’s nice to see you again Miss Virtue.”

“Oh yes, absolutely, now I remember,” Tessa smiles politely and is almost a 100% sure she really does. “Thank you for the lovely food tonight, it was so, so good. Thank you for keeping the kitchen open for so long, too, it’s so late already.”

“Everything for a fellow hockey fan,” he inclines his head, indicating Scott and then addresses him again. “Everything is settled outside. My staff has left for the night and I’ll be in the office if you need anything.”

 

Tessa tilts her head and stares at her partner from the side, barely managing to say a friendly goodbye to Vikram because she’s so curious what is happening.

“What is going on?” She asks but Scott just grins.

“I’d told you we were doing something special for your birthday,” he smirks, then strips out of his jacket and puts it over her shoulders for her to slip into. “Come on, let’s go outside.”

 

‘Outside’ makes no sense to Tessa until she realizes that the large, now deserted restaurant floor leads onto a stunning, amazing, brightly lit, beautiful patio deck with more tabels high in the skyline of Vancouver. In the far corner where the two half walls meet that comprise the railing, she can make out a bar table covered in a dark tablecloth and a Champagne cooler with two glasses on it. But what pulls most of her focus to that corner are the fairy lights. And mind you, fairy lights are all over the place anyway. They’re spanning the entire deck, held up by the posts of the balustrade that is built up wall high around the patio and surrounded by see-through wire-fence so that no one can fall off the roof.

 

The light bulbs are hanging in strings above them horizontally but in that far corner, there’s strings of light cascading down vertically, making a curtain, a sort of light-made gazebo around that corner and it’s one of the most idyllic, wonderful things she’s ever seen. She turns around to Scott in awe and shakes her head a little. It’s a bit chilly out and she wonders briefly if he’s not freezing in his light dress shirt but she can’t linger on that thought right now, because _holy shit,_ this is the most amazing thing anybody has ever done for her.

 

“This is too much, Scott,” she tells him and grabs his hand. “It’s so beautiful.”

“It’s your birthday,” he shrugs by way of explaining and smiles at her, his laughter lines illuminated to golden serenity by the fairy lights.

“Technically my birthday is over,” Tessa mutters over a grin, still staring at him and only after she has caught her breath that had momentarily left her lungs, faced with that lovely, sappy, beautiful man of hers.

“As long as we don’t sleep, it’s still your birthday,” he proclaims and then tugs her hand forward. “Come on, let’s give you your present.”

“Oh Scott, this evening is gift enough, I don’t de-,” she says following him still and he cuts her off.

“Don’t you dare say you don’t deserve this, T,” he tells her and she can feel his eyes on her as she looks ahead so he doesn’t run into an empty table. “You deserve _everything._ ”

 

Her partner is a walking romcom sometimes and she not-so-secretly loves that, every time he shows her (or the entire world, who are they kidding) that side of him. So she grins as he leads her forward and gives up on holding back the happy tears from clouding her view. When they arrive in the bright corner, it feels as if they’re standing under a waterfall of lights, as if fireflies have aligned to cover them in their glow and Scott pours them Champagne (as if she wasn’t lightheaded enough already) and they clink their glasses, looking at each other.

This is a fairy tale, it must be. Being here with him now after so many years of not getting it right, of not understanding how to navigate and handle their relationship, to now get to call him hers with all his being, all the ways that make him the most wonderful man she has ever known, it seems more fantastical than anything. And he’s so handsome, so so handsome standing there in the flickering lights and he’s letting his hair grow out again (the way she likes it) and he really does look like her very own Disney prince. And flaws and all, he’s perfectly imperfect and perfect, perfect, _perfect_ for her.

 

“Okay, now for the fun part!” He announces, cutting her marvelling short, and puts both their glasses to the side, setting them next to what looks like a small remote which Tessa hadn’t noticed before and then bends down to pull a big wrapped box from underneath the table cloth. (So he had obviously given detailed instructions on what the staff needed to set up out here while the regular guests were leaving and Team Canada had their dinner inside...she is in awe of all of this today, from his perfect cake ordering, to organizing all of their colleagues to forfeit hours of their precious sleep before most of them fly on over to Korea the next day, he’s just being...so Type-A, she kind of loves it). Scott watches her fondly and brushes her hand when he puts the box into her palms and he looks so soft, voice like molasses, when he says: “Open it. Happy Birthday, Tessa.”

 

_Holy crap._

 

She knows _exactly_ what is going on the very second she opens the box on the table and sees that there is a smaller one inside it.

“Scott,” she breathes, almost yelps, really and her hands shake, digging into the wrapping of the second box and–of course–revealing a third, even smaller one. She snaps her head around to find his eyes again, trained on her expectantly, shining like the stars.

“Yes,” she tells him, because she just _knows._ “Yes, yes, yes, Scott!”

 

He laughs loudly and yup, he’s crying. _This is happening._

 

“Babe, just get the damn ring out first,” he breathes. “I have a whole speech prepared!”

She breaks out in a hysterical giggle and fumbles on blindly until she absolutely has to take her eyes off of him to see what she is doing. (Eyesight is not much help, the problem is that she is shaking so much, she can barely grip the wrapping paper but she wills her fingers to be steady, so she can tear into box after box.)

 

And surely, down at the bottom, after five boxes, there’s that minty-bluish one that says “Tiffany’s & Co.”. She just knew when the time came, he’d get her one from Tiffany’s, because of Audrey and because of, well, her. She gingerly takes it out and holds it toward him, eyes skidding from the box to him and back until he takes it, lifts the lid and discards it to the table, then fumbles open the clasp of the actual black ring box beneath.

 

Inside, there’s actually two rings, both slim and almost rosé-ish white gold with soft pink stones inlain in both bands, only that one has an additional, larger cushion-cut diamond added to it which makes it scream “ENGAGEMENT RING”. The other one looks almost exactly like the one she wears on her middle finger and she knows why he picked a _set_ of rings...it’s so she can wear the sensible one outside and pass it off as a fashion choice, while they’ll both know what it really is.

“Yes!” She says again and makes a grab for the box but he pulls it out of reach, laughing.

“Tess!” He admonishes softly. “I said I have a speech.”

“Okay, fine, sorry,” she tells him, her voice shaking, her entire face shaking, really.

 

“Tessa, I…” he starts, sinking down to one knee and looks straight into her soul, his eyebrows doing _that thing_ while his tears bubble over and he clears his throat. He’s trying to speak, looking like a fish on land and she knows this is prime-emotional Scott, how he gets when he’s trying to keep all of his feelings (the myriad of them, the worlds he contains in himself) inside but fails. He coughs, must look for his words but gives up eventually and cries more instead. “Goddammit, Jesus!” He huffs and uses the hand not holding the ring out to her to rub his eyes, which is a futile endeavour but she loves him for trying. Then he blurts out: "Will you marry me, T?”

“Yes!” She laughs loudly, accepting his proposal for the third time that night and barely waits until he has pushed the rings over her finger to yank him up and pull him into her arms, kissing whatever she can reach as often as she can.

 

Their tears are mingling on their cheeks and she is the happiest girl in the entire cosmos, standing there, wrapped in the arms of her fiancé ( _Fiancé!!!_ ) under a sky full of stars and a canopy of flurry lights, a tummy full of love and good food and arms and heart full of the greatest thing she’s held in her life so far (to be replaced only by their children some years along the line). She’s so happy, happy, happy.

 

Scott comes out on the other side of that kiss as an engaged man and as proud of what he’s done that night as he was after his very best skates. She said yes. God fucking dammit, he’s gonna marry Tessa Virtue. _Did you hear that, Canada?_ He half wants to scream it from the literal rooftop. _SHE SAID YES!_ (He’s forgotten his speech, but that’s alright, he still has his vows coming and so he has all that good material saved for then.)

 

Blinking fresh grateful tears away, he finds her eyes and then they’re both laughing. He gathers her up in his arms again, like he had on the ice in PyeongChang when they’d known they’d did their best and that it would be enough to win. In their life together, that’s what they’d done, too. Did their best and now it’s finally enough to win. After all the near misses and the pining and the longing and the jealousy and the heartbreak, after all their growing together and separately. They’ve finally made it. There’s finally not even a smidge of hesitation before saying yes to each other, over and over.

“Do you want to dance?” He asks her as he’s putting her down onto her full feet and she whispers an “Always” into his ear.

 

That’s his cue to blindly reach of the remote on the table and hit the play button in the general direction of the restaurant where the PA system starts up the soft first notes of “The Book Of Love” by Peter Gabriel and it’s cheesy as fuck and kind of stolen from “Scrubs” but he knows Tess loves that song and loves that scene anyway and he’s enough of a sap to indulge this bit of ridiculously saccharine extravaganza. (Yes, fine, he fucking loves that scene, too. Who wouldn’t who has a functioning heart?)

“You’re such an idiot,” she chuckles into his neck as he brings her close into a cheek-to-cheek dance hold and leads her in tiny circles.

 

“The book of love has music in it, in fact that's where music comes from. Some of it is just transcendental, some of it is just really dumb,” he croaks, singing along with his voice breaking over his bubbling emotions. “But I, I love it when you sing to me. And you, you can sing me anything.”

“I love you so much,” she says on the instrumental break before shamelessly humming along and singing the last verse right with him, because with him, she does. For him, she _sings._

“I love you, too,” he echoes as the song fades into the last violin chord and he leans back out to look at her. “So much.”

 

They stand like that for a while, just staring at each other, in their own world, in their bubble of fairy lights and Champagne and a diamond on her finger and her body wrapped in his smart, sophisticated jacket (in the pant-suit she wore to Ellen where she told the world they weren’t a couple...which is now at least technically true at long last, because now they’re _engaged_ ). It’s only them in the universe, only them and nothing else.

 

“Ready to go home?” He asks her eventually, not because he couldn’t spend forever with her there but because he’s getting kind of cold and the clock won’t rest and if they want to have even a wink of sleep before flying to Korea, they need to be leaving soon (because he will obviously make love to her as soon as they’re at the hotel until that damn bed breaks).

 

When they say goodbye to Vikram, Scott hides the engagement ring on her finger under his grip and thanks the Chef for making this birthday-surprise possible. They take a picture with him but under the condition that he doesn’t publish it or upload it anyway until their say-so and then they’re on their way.

 

Back in Tessa’s hotel room, she pulls him inside and closes the door after him and smiles. He loves that smile, it’s her “Absolutely nothing is bothering me right now and I love you”-smile and it’s the best thing ever.

“Just stay, okay?” She says, running her fingers up and down his collar. “Get your suitcase and stay here until we absolutely have to leave.”

 

It’s kind of a joke in and of itself that he puts one of his suitcases in the hotel rooms that have been booked for him on the tour anyway, when he spends nine of ten nights in hers, but he feels guilty for the money spent not to use them at all. But he’s quickly convinced to follow her suggestion anyway and get the rest of his crap from his room at the end of the hall in favour of having half an hour more with her in bed in the morning. And it’s not like most of his stuff isn’t mixed in with hers in her, _their_ , giant three suitcases, so, it’s really just to have less of a hassle before their 11 AM flight.

 

When he gets back, he barely manages to shove his carry-on in the corner and shut the door at the sight of her, lounging on the bed in flimsy, dark-red lingerie that's ludicrous, painfully arousing but somehow still tasteful (because this is  _Tessa_ ), perfect with a fucking garter-belt and stockings (Stockings!) and her lips are glossy-delicious and smirking at his mouth falling open in shock.

 

“How long where you gonna hide from me that you brought _that_ along?” He asks dry-mouthed when he can speak again and stalks to be bed, clumsily stepping out of his shoes while he’s at it.

“Until the day I wanted to give you a little treat,” she winks and brings up the hand with the ring. “I think _this_ warrants a little nod for great behaviour, don’t you?”

“You’re the worst,” he says, unbuttoning his shirt and tossing it aside. “I’m now faced with a terrible dilemma thanks to you devil-woman.”

“What’s that?” She asks, all teasing, wide-eyed innocence.

“I want to look at you wearing that forever but I also want to rip it off of you with my teeth and fuck you until you see stars,” he answers breathlessly, almost falling as he’s prying off his jeans and socks.

 

Tessa laughs and sits up on the bed grabbing his hips as he steps up to her and winks at him to suggest: “Compromise, you look at me in it for a little while now and then you take it off however you wanna take it off, alright?” With that, she tucks his boxer briefs down and he thinks that’s an excellent suggestion. (Ultimately, he spends more time looking at his dick slipping in and out of her cherry-red lips, the way she hollows out her mouth around him and glances up from under long lashes like sin, than he does at her underwear but that’s fine, too. It’s a pretty fair trade-off.)

 

After, when the sun is rising softly over the Vancouver skyline and she lies naked on his chest, he lets his hands wander up and down her back. That back on that body he knows better than the valleys and plains of his own and he could kiss the stars. It’s all still just as big, the scope of his feelings for her, the same near-crushing, overwhelming hugeness that has scared him so much his entire life. And it had scared him severely until he could put a name to what it was his heart did when he saw her, when she leaned into him, when she showed him that she needed him and even more so, when she showed him that she _wanted_ him just as much. It doesn’t scare him anymore. Loving her is who he is, it’s a part of him, like breathing, like a limb. And that’s okay.

 

He doesn’t lose sleep worrying that he doesn’t deserve her anymore either, because she doesn’t get tired of telling and showing him that he does. He’s not scared of messing it up because they learned how to be friends to each other first, partners next and then lovers. They know now how to contain the oceans of feelings and stories and experiences shared together. They know the work it takes and they know that together, they can tackle it all. They’ve done it all together and came out of everything right the way they are now. Strong together. Unbeatable. Unstoppable. And if he wanted to sleep, this would give him the peace of mind in the world to.

 

Alas, he has no intention of sleeping tonight. He’ll sleep on the plane, or the ice in Korea, he doesn’t care (he’s aware of how his throat rasps and starts hurting low in the back and he’ll be sick most of next week probably but that doesn’t matter either now), all he wants to do is be awake. He wants to look at her and touch her and hold her and be with her and not miss a thing. After growing back together in the months after Sochi and through 2015, even after deciding to come back, until the point where they had grown so much that between them, there’d been no more room for others, now, watching her watching his hands move on her in awe, it’s the best thing he could ever ask for.

 

He stays awake even when she drops off and bless her, because she was really fighting it, trying to keep her eyes open, trying to talk to him with a tired mouth and and fluttering eyelids. But he doesn’t have the heart to keep her awake. Tessa has such a hard time getting comfortable to sleep most nights and it happens once in a blue moon that she actually falls asleep on his body, so he lets her and just watches her face relax and drift into looseness.

Seeing her like that, he can’t help but remember the first time they’d slept together, all those years ago, that night when she’d called him after the doctor’s appointment where she learnt about having to get surgery on her shins. He’d been such an idiot back then, so unworthy of this wonderful person sleeping next to him. But he had loved her just as he loves her now, even then.

 

He remembers how he’d knocked on his parent’s bedroom door to tell them that she was staying over, remembers the firm glare of her mother, her words a warning as well as a plea (because she knew her son): “Be careful, Scottie, she’s in so much pain, don’t break her heart.”

 

And he’d been a little taken aback, because he'd understood she meant to insinuate that he didn’t care about Tessa’s heart.

(And yes, he did wind up breaking it because he was a grade-A asshole and couldn’t handle how much he loved her and how scared he was to loose her and how little he was able to give words to that, so unable he ran away from it entirely for two months and ended up nearly breaking the partnership right along with that heart of hers).

But he still  _had_ very much cared for her, deeply, despite his own shortcomings. He had been in love with her too, for a good two years at that point. And he was pretty sure that she felt the same way about him but they’d had all those rules and all those boundaries and he’d cultivated this strategy of taking everything he felt for her and leave it on the ice when they danced. It was safe to love her there, it was even what was asked of him. It was a good place to do it too, he only had to be careful not to kiss her too often. All the excess feelings, he burnt off in other relationships with girls who, yes, he loved as well to a certain extent but she’d always been special. She’d always been _Tessa._

 

And that night, when his mother implored him to give her Danny’s room, he’d thought _no._ He was the only one who could understand her and thus be there with her the way she needed it. She had asked to see him, she wanted to be close to him, she needed _him._ (Which was all _he_ needed incidentally to completely stop thinking rationally.) And there’d been no way in hell he would’ve sent her to sleep alone in a cold, dark, abandoned bedroom down the hall, when he was _right there._ And mind you, he hadn’t asked her to stay with the purpose of having sex with her, that had not been his intention. He’d thought about it, yes, but he always thought about it (every practice, every car ride they took alone, every competition, nearly every time he jerked off in the shower, imagining her lithe body pressed against his and...just...he’d thought about it a lot, despite himself), so that wasn’t such a wild, out-of-the-norm occurrence.

 

But he’d wanted to be good for her and unselfish, so he had shoved his own desires into the back of his mind and tried to talk her into oblivion, to make her forget about the uncertainty to come and instead reminded her of what they had together and that he’d always be there. (To reiterate, he did go into the whole surgery-episode, starting that night, with the best intentions, but then again, what do they say about the road to hell?)

 

He’d woken up short, in the middle of the night to her snoring softly beside him and had done nothing but watch her sleep for minutes and minutes. Eventually though, when he determined that she was so far gone, he wouldn’t bother her, he allowed himself a tiny bit of selfishness and folded himself around her, molding his body over hers. He fell back asleep like that, to the sound of her heartbeat and woke up again to her hands stroking lazy circles into the arm he had slung around her ribs. She stopped the second she noticed he’d stirred and he couldn’t help the noise of protest that left him, honest, he’d tried to. But it had felt so nice and he didn’t want her to stop.

 

To his somewhat-surprise and definite-elation, she continued a moment later and then his sleep-addled brain processed that she must’ve been touching him for some time. That she’d obviously _wanted_ to touch him and that it felt anything but _friendly_ which in turn was the moment he boarded the express train to boner town.

 

He’d tried to reign himself in, he really did, but then Tessa had turned around in his arms, knowing exactly what she was doing and he knew on his side of things that he was a lost cause. He’d been lost all night really, the first time he realized how the smell of her hair was mixing with the smell of his sheets, the moment he glanced over and noticed how amazing she looked in his bed and how much he wanted her there, possibly forever (and when you’re barely twenty, _forever_ is a pretty scary thing to want with someone).

 

He’d followed her lead then, unable to be the bigger man, to stop and question what they were doing and what the consequences might be. He’d been so weak with wanting her, he listened when she answered his questions for consent with nods and moans and “You’re not making me do anything, but I might make _you_ ” (he will never forget that sentence as long as he lives, it haunts his dirty dreams to this day).

 

And he’d always wanted to keep his filthy, stone hands off of her, had never wanted to bruise or to taint because it was Tessa. Pure, sweet, kind, patient, understanding, frustrating, complicated, disarming, enticing, irresistible, completely amazing Tessa, whose last name was _literally_ virtue. But she had wanted his hands, had wanted them on her, right there and he’d been too insane for her to let that chance pass him by. So he had let his nether brain take over and dictate his actions. And like a shot (like he always did when he allowed himself to feel for Tessa how he really felt, beneath the guilt and the expectations, touching himself in the harsh fluorescent light of his shower in Canton to thoughts of her), he had  _wanted_ to taint her, wanted to leave his marks on her, wanted her whole and unadulterated, wanted to scorch himself at her innocence and burn her up, have her, only her, _own_ her. _Mine, mine, mine,_ was what he thought when he pushed inside her that very first time. _And never another._

He had dreamed about this moment so long, he literally nearly started to cry. He knew she wasn't a virgin but he pretended she was, had wanted to be her first before she even turned sixteen and he made love to her like she was, slow at first, careful to ease her in, careful to see what she liked and what she didn't. And he knew her body, knew it so well it was like his own. That helped. Looking at her slowly letting go of all that control that was so essential to her, so very much Tessa, was like getting to know her all over again and he loved that girl, too. The open one, the one that shamelessly whispered curse words, scratched his back bloody, the one that caught his eye and looked at him in a way that told him she was fucking him just as much as he was fucking her. She was young and not young, innocent and filthy (he would spiral about this dichotomy later and it would mess things up and mess with him for years to come), she was his Tessa and she was _his. Tessa._ She was everything.

 

When she came (and he knew she did because he could feel her muscles flutter all around him), she’d looked almost a little shocked, as if she was scared of falling and he’d put his hand on her cheek and whispered, barely making sense from how close he was as well: “I’m here. I’m _here,_ Tess. Let go." (He was the first one to ever make her come, he'd learn that later, and even if he wasn't her first, she would one day tell him, he was the first, the only, that ever counted.)

 

"You’re mine. I got you,” he panted, just before he flung himself over the edge after her. And came inside her, staring into her eyes, another hazy, hotly held fantasy of his coming true and he felt like he owned her, a little part of her that would belong to him from then on and forever, and it only made him shudder more. "Fucking...mine." 

 

What he’d failed to see was that Tessa couldn’t be claimed (and much later, he understood that he didn’t want that either, he wanted her to be able to choose, to give herself away, and to choose him, every day, for the rest of their life together). And while he didn’t get hold of her then, he completely lost himself to her that night, which was ironic.

 

While trying to make her his, he had poured himself into her completely, fractured himself into shreds in a bid to make her feel like there would always be a part of him in her. But that’d been that part that _he_ lost to _her_ that night.

He realized that when she went away to get the surgery. That a piece of him was missing, out of his control, maybe gone forever if she wouldn’t come back to him, maybe gone forever if she _did_ come back but wouldn’t want him anymore, wouldn’t need him anymore because the pain would be over. Or maybe gone forever if she walked away from him one day. And that had scared him so much, he couldn’t pick up the phone and call her, not for almost two months.

 

After Sochi, that part missing of him, the one stuck in Tessa, had turned into a gaping hole while he was trying to get away from skating and sport and her and the heart that she broke. A hole he had attempted to fill with Kaitlyn and drinking and trying and failing to carve out a place for himself in the world. It wasn’t until Tessa came back to him, came back _for_ him (that horrendous night when he’d broken Mike’s nose) and they started filling it up with real and honest-to-god friendship and genuine care for each other, that he finally was able to find a way out of his downward spiral.

 

It was also then that he understood that they would never have worked while he was still trying to get that stray part back from her. He needed to come to terms with the fact that it was lost to him and that he could trust her to take care of it, even if she did not want to love him. She would always keep it safe. And he’d conceded himself to half a life, really, had accepted that he could be incomplete and still strong and happy and loving Tessa without getting to _love_ her, that he would be fine somehow. In the end, that’d been the moment it all started to click.

 

Later he would learn that Tessa had loved him madly through all of it (very nearly her whole life, fiercely loyal and almost fatalistic about it) and while she does not feel like a part of her is missing when he isn’t there, it’s more like Scott is the other half of her, the second integral part of who she is and that she, fiercely independent and wilfully free at heart, had to make her peace with that particular emotion. They had to learn to be okay with the fact that they were different from other people, that they were warped.

 

They’d been put together as children, pliable and bendy, like slowly hardening iron and had been wrought around each other and then hammered and fixed into place by years and years of pressure to be _together._ It had changed them, altered their DNA almost. For good. Normal human terms for relationships, “dating” or “couple” or “romantically involved” or even “best friends” where not strong enough and they also didn’t apply. They were and they are intrinsically linked, like Plato’s round people, one entity, Tessa-and-Scott. Which is also why normal human concepts of individuality, autonomy and maybe even free will aren’t very straightforward things when it comes to them. They’re hard-fought-for and often elusive.

 

The bond they share will always be there and would always be there, even if they tried to sever it, it wouldn’t go away. It would simply be empty, like a wound. And that’s a fuckton of shit to wrap one’s mind around. It takes time to come to terms with it, to accept it, to process and catalogue those emotions and make sense of them. They were literally made to love each other, not by some deity or fate but by their life together, by their circumstances. The lesson there had been to recognize this and to use that love to get them to a place where they could actualize actually having a choice in the end. That had been the turning point. Once they accepted that they would always be together on some level, they were free to look each other in the eye and be honest about what they wanted from each other, free will and all. Which ultimately, luckily, turned out to be the same thing. (Phew.)

 

Much of that they’d puzzled together in their years of therapy but most of it had fallen into place (and would continue to) in shared beds and whispered conversations.

 

So yes, sharing a bed with her, much like sharing his _life_ with her, has been tumultuous at times, confusing and often pushing the limits of his self-control, his sanity maybe even. But along with that it had also always been weirdly safe and fulfilling and always put him into his own bones, into the very core of who he was as a human being. And as per his nature, he had loved her through it all, very nearly every second of every single night spent in any bed with her. God knows he does now, more than anything. He could still cry thinking about how hard it was at times to get to this point in their life but he wouldn’t change a single damn thing about it. It all counted, it all _counts_ still, every last step of the way here.

 

And he has no idea how he gets to be so lucky, only that he’s grateful, deeply, for every star that had to align to get them into this bed, right now. Knowing what they know, feeling what they feel and with an eternity of nights together to come.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: Everything after the meet & greet is obviously made up. The restaurant and its Chef exists but I have no idea if they ever met or if they ever went there in their lives. (But they should, that patio deck is so pretty...if you wanna check it out go here: https://www.instagram.com/eatdrinkvijs/ )


	6. Plus One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so sorry for the delay, folks! This was supposed to go up yesterday but we were driving all day and the Internet wasn't consistent enough to upload, but now, here it is...right on time for North American breakfast (I guess?).
> 
> I want to preface this by saying: SORRY! This is tooth-rotting fluff. I am serious, there is not even an ounce of conflict in this and not a smidge of pain. It's shameless and bashful fluff. Just...know that.
> 
> Also..I wrote most of this literally in a car and edited myself, so please ignore the inevitable mistakes! There'll be a couple :D

**+I**

These days, whenever their oftentimes converging schedules allow, Tessa and Scott sleep in the same bed. When they don’t, they’re either in different cities or he’s been out late with the guys for the odd bar-night and sleeps in the guest room (in London) or the couch (in Montreal) so as to not wake her up. 

 

They’re splitting their time between the two cities. Scott has tentatively started helping out Patch coach at Gadbois and will continue to do so until he feels ready to get his own team and otherwise tours the country still to speak to young skaters, helps out in the Skate Shop and has couple of small sponsoring gigs for himself. Tessa is in school part-time, finishing her MBA at McGills and travels when she doesn’t have to be there, for partnering deals, business meetings or to go visit rinks across Canada with Scott, go to charity or speaking engagements with him or skate shows here and there. 

 

They’ve been officially retired for nearly a year and life is calmer now, more normal than right after the games. People have...cooled down a little. Sure, when they had loosened the secrecy after their retirement and eventually announced their engagement, there had been a couple of interviews and a never-ending string of twitter mentions but all in all people had been kind and respectful of their privacy and sure, maybe they sold half the tickets for their “Thank You Canada”-tour across the country in the fall of 2018 because people wanted to see if they would finally kiss at the end of a program (they did, but only ever at the very end of the show), but that was alright. When anybody yelled “Get married” from the crowd, Tessa just held up her engagement ring up into the air and Scott yelled back: “I’m gonna!”

 

The transition into their post-retirement life was hard at certain points but they took their time, being patient with themselves and with each other. They still see JF regularly, separately and together and put a priority on their personal relationship now that a some of their professional work doesn’t overlap anymore.

 

But even with different careers and travelling a lot, most nights, they share a bed. And they do this in the same way they share their life now, companionable, sensual and sensible, with laughter and love and happiness. But this night, even though they are in the same city and Scott is not out with his buddies, they’re sleeping separately. They’re not even in the same house. 

 

He’d gone to his parents earlier in the day and she had stayed in their home in London, with Jordan and Midori for company. 

“Is it weird that I miss you even if it’s only been a few hours?” Says the text on Tessa’s phone where it sits on the kitchen isle. 

“Is texting allowed?” Tessa asks over her shoulder where her sister and friend are preparing mimosas.

“Texting yes,” Midori says, putting a glass upside down onto a plate of sugar. “But no pictures and absolutely no facetiming. You’re not supposed to see each other.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Tessa says and picks up her phone to text him back.

 

“That’s usually my line,” she writes and seconds after sending, he is typing again.

“I wanna be with you,” it says and the next reads: “I don’t like this rule.”

“We’ve followed worse rules than that.”

“True. You having fun over there?”

“Always. Your parents good?”

“Perfect. My Mom is probably more nervous than me, though.”

“You’re nervous?” Tessa texts and puts her standard “monkey covering eyes”-emoji behind it for good measure.

“A little,” he sends and then types. And types. And: “Mostly about anything going wrong. It’s a big day.”

“We’ll be fine.” She replies. “We’re together, everything else will be fine. Give Alma and Joe my love.”

“Will do. Say hi to the ladies.”

“They say hi back. Love you.”

“Love you more.”

“Impossible.”

 

“You’re so cute, it’s revolting,” jokes Jordan, peeking behind Tessa’s shoulder and she hides her phone, turning it upside down.

“Don’t snoop,” Tessa admonishes. 

“Mimosa time!” Midori announces cheerfully and passes on their glasses and they toast to Tessa and laugh as if they were a Champagne commercial.

“So, how’s the nerves?” Midori asks after her first sip, sitting down on the barstool next to Tessa while Jordan takes the one on the opposite side of the isle, leaning in closer curiously.

“Nerves are good,” Tessa answers. “Like, everything is aligned and double-checked, the guests are all here, the dress, the rings, all here, the weather is supposed to be beautiful tomorrow. It’s all set up and ready to go.”

“And about the whole...you know...getting married thing? What normal people are nervous about?” Midori chuckles.

“We’re not normal people,” Tessa shrugs. “I’m not nervous to marry him at all. I mean, we’ve practically _been_ married for the last fifteen years or something. That doesn’t scare me.”

“You guys are so lucky,” Midori sighs wistfully. “That you figured it all out.”

“Took us a while,” Tessa tells her and Jordan huffs. “And it wasn’t always easy.”

“But you’ve always loved him,” Jordan says and Midori nods. “I don’t wanna know what would’ve become of either of you if you hadn’t gotten your shit together.”

“Honestly?” Tessa says. “Me neither.”

 

And then they drink and go over the day to come, methodically, about what needed to be done when, who had to be where at which point of the day and who would be handling which catastrophe that might happen. But mostly they joke and laugh and reminisce together, about terrible hair colours and teenage dreams about men and weddings and wether or not they’d ever imagined that their futures would be what they turned out to be. Tessa is the only one who is actually going to marry the boy she’s wanted to marry at sixteen––but neither of them is sincerely surprised by that fact.

 

After another round of mimosas, the girls move into the master bedroom to paint each others nails on the bed, indulging in the over the top girls stuff and talk and giggle their way through almost five episodes of Sex And The City before calling it a night. 

 

Ten, fifteen minutes away, Scott lies on the very bed he’d slept with his future wife for the first time and watches some wildlife documentary (The 72 Most Dangerous Animals in Australia? Or something?), trying to make up his mind if it’s weird that while he’s nervous about the wedding cake toppling over or him stepping on the trim of Tessa’s dress, he’s not at all nervous about spending the rest of his life with her. He remembers a time when he’d rushed his relationship with Kaitlyn to the brink of an engagement and how the prospect had taken his breath away and not in a nice way. And not because Kaitlyn hadn’t been a wonderful person and wouldn’t have been an amazing woman to share his life with (if he’d been just two-thirds less messed up). It just hadn’t been _this._ It hadn’t felt irrevocably right to take this step with her, a step that with Tess had never really been an _if_ but a _when._

 

And _when_ is now just one night away and he’s honestly thrilled. Just the thought of Tessa stapling his name to the end of hers in the morning makes him so proud and grateful, he can’t even begin to find words for it. He deliberates sending her a goodnight text, just because, but then opts for space and instead triple-checks his alarm. And yes, his mother, father and brothers all have strict instructions to wake him up no later than eight in the morning but he really, really, really does not want to be late to his own wedding.

 

So Tessa and Scott fall asleep in different beds for the last time in a while. And when it’s morning, neither of them has any problems getting up. Scott is awake long before Danny raps a round of hulk-knocks on his door, bringing the united Moir-children below thirteen as back-up and Tessa doesn’t even hit her snooze-button once. (It’s maybe the easiest, she has ever gotten out of bed in her life.)

 

For Scott, the morning goes just according to plan: He has breakfast with his family, packs up anything he hadn’t packed the night before and drives with his parents to the winery to oversee the last touches on the decor at the venue and then change into his suit. But not until all his four groomsmen are there, as well as the camera dude Tessa hired to shoot their high-class glossy wedding video (he agreed to having a team of cameras there under the one condition that the tape would never go beyond their friends and family). (It leaks eventually, but by then he doesn’t care so much anymore...plus that video ends up being fucking beautiful, which he’s not sure how he could  have doubted even for a second.)

 

Tessa, meanwhile, welcomes her two additional bridesmaids into her home as well as her part of the camera-crew, a make-up artist and Kelly, who naturally does her hair. (She ends up slyly redoing most of her make-up at the venue a little later because she’s done her competition make-up forever and really, she knows how she wants to look on her wedding day and second-rate-train-station-hooker is not it). They start the day with Champagne and curling irons and her mother is there and her brothers stop by, bringing their wives and children and there’s a wonderful bustle going on right until the point when Tessa, all dressed and ready to go, walks into the living room where most of them wait in a huddle and everything goes silent.

 

“Oh wow,” her mother whispers from the book case and there are tears in her eyes, which in turn puts them in Tessa’s as well. Next thing Casey has put her niece from his lap onto his wife’s and has gingerly scooped her up in his arms, careful not to ruin her intricate half-up, half-down hair, perfect with fresh flowers worked into the back.

“You look perfect,” he whispers into her ear and leans out again, proud and a little nostalgic. “My baby sister is really getting married.”

 

And then there’s spontaneous applause and Tessa practically orders them to stop, because they’re not even at the venue and anyway, looking at the time, they really should get going. Scott would never let her live it down if _she_ was the one late to their wedding. So they pack everybody into the cars and Jordan texts Alma to make sure to keep Scott contained somewhere while the bridal party arrives. Half an hour later, Tessa is rushed into the suite prepared for her. They’re all a bit crazy with the superstitions but through the progression it feels more like a fun game that everyone is playing, making sure that the bride and groom not see each other until the moment she steps onto the aisle. (Or the grass, in their case.)

 

Up until their arrival at the Bellamere Winery, Tessa’s morning has went over in a whirl but as soon as she steps into the room where she’s supposed to wait out the arrival of all the guests (it’s a relatively small wedding party, 152 guests all in all), time becomes infinite. It feels like that time before the Free Dance in competition, where you’ve got about twelve hours to kill after practice until you can finally get on the ice and even if Tessa only has roughly an hour to wait, it feels like millenia. When it’s finally looking like she might be ready to walk down the aisle, her phone lights up on the dressing table, she can’t help but smile like a big idiot when she sees it’s a text from Scott.

“Looking good out here,” he writes. “Ready to do this, kiddo?”

“Ready when you are,” she texts back, fires a couple if emojis after it and for the first time in ages, he sends some back. Just two, really, the bride and groom one, which only makes her laugh more.

 

And then the moment is there. Tessa is flanked by her bridesmaids as she walks out, her mother by her side because she’ll be the one walking her down the aisle (her father had understood when she’d told him and after the hassle it was to get him to be there in the first place, Tessa really did not feel a smidge bad about it at all). In front of her, barely reigned in by Jordan and Midori, are all their combined nieces and nephews under ten who have been designated as flower children and overenthusiastically start throwing their flower petals at her feet a good ten meters before they’re actually supposed to. (It’s fine, there’s white petals signifying the path to the delicately painted wooden gazebo at the end of it anyway.) 

 

Tessa can only faintly hear the music they’ve chosen for her entrance (Water Music: Suite No. 2 in D Major by Handel) and then her mother’s whisper: “Ready?”. Her mom is next to her as they step into the perfect summer day and she nods before she hears nothing at all anymore. Because there, in the distance, is Scott, craning his neck and then their eyes meet and he doesn’t look away until she’s standing beside him. Time stops entirely then and she never wants it to pick up again.

 

Scott has been fine, nerve-wise right until about that time Chiddy told him to just stand still under the roof of the gazebo (there’s flowers and bushes, twigs and greenery everywhere, decking the gazebo and the hall where they’ll have the dinner and the party later and Tessa did absolutely not try to a little bit recreate the last Royal Wedding a tiny bit, nope, not even a smidge). 

 

Still, now that he’s standing there waiting until Tessa shows herself, he suddenly feels like there’s a swarm of bees in his stomach and he wants to move and jump around and stretch and climb something, do anything to get this restless energy out of his body because he’s buzzing and impatient and he wants to see her _now_ and marry her _now_ and kiss her _now_ and hold her _now, now, now._

 

And yes, he thought he was ready to see her. But he wasn’t. He understands that like a brick to his head when she does step out from behind the trees lining the winery, preceded by their nieces and nephews and her bridesmaids, arms linked with her mother who grins and cries, he can even tell from a distance. But everything is simply forgotten, wiped from his mind, right along with the air from his lungs, when he sees her coming towards him. He doesn’t notice the crowd turning around with ‘ooh’s and ‘ahhh’s, doesn’t see the camera trained on him, doesn’t see a damn thing but Tessa, getting closer.

 

She looks absolutely stunning and she always does but this is really something else. Her hair is pretty, soft curls half-up tucked against her head, a few stray strands framing her face and the rest falling wavy and soft around her shoulders and there are flowers in her hair and a veil that sits on the back of her head and falls long down to the large trail of her dress. The dress itself is minimalistic and elegant, a sleeveless, startling deep V (in the front and in the back, but he’ll only find out about the back in a moment), a simple A-line silhouette with crisp stitching, a little lace in a slightly-off-white, dust-kissed colour that brings out her skin tone and eyes, even from afar. She shines brighter than the sun and he has no idea how to get through his vows with how dry his throat is and how wet his eyes are.

 

He thanks his common sense that he had the wits to write his vows down on a piece of paper that sits in his inner suit pocket instead of trying something stupid like learning them by heart, the way he had attempted with his proposal speech. He’s honestly happy he remembers his own name at this point. The seconds stretch out endlessly as she walks to him, her mother letting go of her with only a few meters left to go and in the periphery of his eyes he can see tissues being passed around left and right and he has to wipe a good amount of his own tears off his face because it’s getting hard to see her and that’s unacceptable. She grins, eyes wild and full of love when they find his again after kissing her mother on the cheek. How does he get to be so lucky? He has no idea.

 

She is calm stepping up to him, holding out both her arms after passing on her bouquet to Jordan who takes her place as Maid of Honour opposite Danny, who serves as Best Man. Scott keeps his eyes on hers as he takes her hands and she takes her place under the gazebo with him. They’ve pretended to be in this position so many times before, standing at an alter of sorts, on the ice, for that horrifying bridal photoshoot and outside of any “pretending”, they’d stood around like this too many times to count, too. Holding each other with both hands, looking at each other while the world around them disappeared, but now it’s all new, it’s all huge and big and wonderful and bursting like a kaleidoscope of bright colours in his chest.

 

“Hi,” Tessa smiles, looking up at him and _Ha!_ her eyes are glassy with tears, too! He’s not the only one getting emotional.

“Hi,” he rasps back and only keeps from kissing her by a hair because he knows he’s not supposed to yet but it’s a damn near thing.

“Happy?” She asks.

“So happy,” he answers. “You look amazing.”

“So do you,” she says and grins and then Father Robert, the priest who’s married pretty much any Moir in the area (often in that same venue), clears his throat, to signal that the two of them are supposed to be quiet now. 

 

“Dear friends and family of Tessa and Scott. We have all come together on this wonderful, sunny day today to celebrate this momentous occasion in the life of this couple standing before me. They are daughter, sister, aunt, son, brother, uncle and friends to you and I was told I can speak for them when I say that they are overjoyed to have all of you here to join in on their boundless happiness of their union in holy matrimony. That’s a big word right there but I think it’s just about big enough for the two of them.”

 

There are some chuckles from the audience and for the first time, Scott actually turns to look at the Father, who is smiling kindly. He has aged quite a bit since Scott has seen him last at Sheri’s wedding but he still looks sharp in a civilian suit, only the white collar giving away his status as a man of faith. Tessa had been pretty clear on not wanting anybody to show up in high ornate and it had been a bit of a pain to manoeuvre the preparations of the service anyway, really. Especially in regards to the whole “raising your children in the Christian faith”-bit, which Tessa was a lot less enthusiastic about than him. (“Because I would like our children to have a good education on the matter and get to decide for themselves”, she had said.) So in the end, they had settled on an ecumenical ceremony, with no mention of children’s faiths and only prolific mentions of any faith in the first place, which was as far as Scott was willing to go in terms of compromising. He suspects Tessa would have been just fine with a civil ceremony, being more spiritual than religious herself, but she gave him and his family that Christian ceremony and he honestly loves her even more for it than he does anyway.

 

“When Tessa and Scott came to me the first time to talk about today, I asked them what getting married meant to them and what was prevalent in their answers was this sense of outspoken commitment to each other. To turn their faces to the world and show them their hands, so to speak. And those hands are entwined. Those hands have held on to each other since they were six and eight years old. Their love is a remarkable one, the longevity alone of it baffling even to me, and I have been marrying couples since before either of them was born. But more so than the years they have shared together, is the bond that they share, which I am sure all of you have witnessed grow and bloom over those decades spent together. Having Tessa and Scott in the room with me, I felt a sense of sanctity that is rare even for a man of God. And in talking to their friends and family, to some of you here in the audience today, I have heard this echoed back to me many times. Tessa and Scott, your relationship is a special one, an already successful one and you have told me that it has taken a great deal of work but ultimately, that is what a relationship is, what a marriage is.”

 

Father Robert lets his eyes sweep across the crowd once, before addressing only them: “In a marriage, you work together, to communicate, to build each other up, to give support and offer solace, to help each other through the troubling times and share in each others successes. You work to understand the other person, you stand by them and hold their hand when the going gets rough. You work and you reap the benefits of that work, the laughter and the joy, the trust and the faith in each other. I truly believe that life has set you up for a fruitful, fulfilling marriage and that God has put you in each others path as early as he did for a reason.”

 

He lets that hand in the air between them for a second, before reaching behind him for a moment and gathering a small black bible in his hands. “I’m making this short because the two of them decided they wanted a standing-up ceremony,” he quips, shaking the bible at the crowd a bit so everyone can see what he means and gets a nice laugh in return. Then he opens the book to read aloud: “Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their labor: If either of them falls down, one can help the other up. But pity anyone who falls and has no one to help them up. Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm. But how can one keep warm alone? Ecclesiastes 4:9 –– Tessa and Scott, may you continue to help each other up and may you continue to keep each other warm."

 

Scott is crying, yes, but the fact that over that bible verse, Tessa has started _sobbing_ feels like a little personal victory. He still pries his hand out of hers to wipe her tears away and smiles. Father Robert waits patiently until that is done before he puts the bible away and addresses them once again. “Now, I understand that both of you have written your own vows for each other. Scott, you may read yours to Tessa now.”

 

“Showtime,” Scott mouths to her, the way they do before a big skate sometimes and she giggles, trying to steady herself as much as he does as he clamours for his note. He’s shaking as he unfolds it, and infinitely glad for the microphone that is set up between them, because when he starts talking, he has such trouble getting any kind of volume out of his voice. He’s so choked up, it’s a wonder he is audible at all.

 

“Tess,” he starts and takes a big breath. He has to count to three in his head before pulling on his competition focus to get through this. “Geez.” He coughs and chokes on a half-sob. _Off to a great start, Moir._ “Tessa, when I sat down to write this I didn’t even know where to start. I still don’t. At first I tried to list everything I love about you and then that took too long and too many pages to trust myself with not dropping today. Because I knew I’d be a mess.” He pauses for laughter, mostly for hers but a bit for that of the crowd, too. “You’ve put up with me for the better part of two whole decades, T, and I count my blessings every day that you’re not tired of me yet. I promise you I’ll never tire of you, I’ll never get used to the way you look at me, I’ll never not have butterflies in my stomach when I get to kiss you, I’ll never not hate to watch you leave and wait for you to come back to me. I will never let go of your hand. I will work every day of my life to make sure you know how loved you are, how seen and appreciated.” He takes another breath, working through the tears and the tremor in his voice because he has to get through this, he has to. 

 

“I will do everything in my power to make sure you know that you have saved me a million times, your patience and your grace has kept me alive and made me the man that I am, has made me want to improve and be better, for you, for my family and friends and my community. All I want to do in my life is make you proud for the man you married. I never want to let you down. Your ferociousness, your sense of humour, your grit, your boundless strength, your unwavering loyalty, your passion and determination have carried me, your emotional stability, your level head and clear thinking has pulled me back from self-destruction too many times to count. I owe you my life, Tessa Virtue, and you’ve never asked for anything in return. I love you, so much. I am so proud of you and I am so proud and grateful that we get to do _this_ together too and embark on this new adventure in our life. There’s no one I’d rather share it with. Truly, honestly. Forever, T. It all revolves around you.”

 

When that’s done, he lets out a relieved huff of air and looks up from his notes to find Tessa crying again (and really, what make-up does she have on? Triple waterproof? There isn’t even a lash out of place?! Is she even real?). She looks at him, helplessly and he mimes a “deep breath” to her, which she mirrors and mouths “I love you.”

 

“Tessa, you may now say your vows to Scott,” Father Robert announces into their moment and Tessa nods. She doesn’t have notes, because she’s a badass.

 

“Scott,” she begins and has to stop right away, much like him, because the _tears._ “I…,” and then she makes the mistake of looking at their families in the crowd and she cracks on a half-sob, half-laugh. “I promised myself I would get through this vow today but it’s so hard.” He squeezes both her hands and nods in encouragement. _You can do this, T. You can do anything._

 

“I can’t put words to what you mean to me and what our life together means to me,” she says, reigning in her voice and he smiles, willing her to go on. “And I can’t believe I agreed to let you go first because we have virtually the same vows!” Laughter from the audience.

 

“You’re the most generous, honest, warmest, most caring person I know. And I am so proud every day of everything you are and have achieved. There was not a single moment in the last twenty-two years that I haven’t felt safe with you, that I haven’t needed you in my life as an anchor, a touchstone and as my best friend. Even in the…in our darkest moments, I knew at the end of the day, there would always be you, you would never let go of my hand. You’re my constant, my rock and I love you more than I could ever put into words. You are the other half of me. Your sense of humour, your energy, your determination, your ability and willingness to connect with people and above all your unwavering, overwhelming kindness leaves me in awe every day. In my eyes, you do no wrong.” Scott tries to remember this moment as it happens, tries to keep it as a moving picture, etches it into his mind because it’s everything he knows she feels for him but hearing it, out loud, in front all of their friends and family, is the most rewarding thing he maybe ever got to hear.

 

“There’s this saying that goes: Don’t marry a man unless you can live with having a son who is just like him,” Tessa continues. “And that is all I could ever ask for. If I ever have a son, I want him to be exactly like you and for you to be his father, that’s all I could ever hope for. I am thankful and proud everyday of the life that we shared together and I can’t wait to start out on this new part of our journey with you.” With this, she turns to the audience and tells them on a teary grin: “And I’m not kidding, this is the part in my vows where I say: There’s no one I’d rather share it with.” Which are his words form just minutes before and he laughs loudly as she turns back to him. “I love you, always and I could not be any happier, any louder or any prouder saying ‘I do’ today. I believe one of the greatest honours of my life will be adding your name to mine and I will carry it proudly, forever. I love you. Until the end of time.”

 

And there is _her_ Moulin Rouge reference, which, honest to God, they had not told each other about beforehand. Scott chances a look over at their guests and thinks that there might be fewer people _not_ crying right now.

“Thank you, Tessa and Scott,” says Father Robert. “Now Scott, please repeat after me: I, Scott Patrick Moir, take you, Tessa Jane McCormick Virtue…”

“I, Scott Patrick Moir,” Scott repeats. “Take you, Tessa Jane McCormick Virtue…such a mouthful…” (Another pause for laughter and Tessa’s admonishing eye-roll.

“To be my wife,” Father Robert continues and Scott repeats every phrase back to Tessa, holding her locked in his gaze, meaning and promising any last syllable. “My partner in life and my best friend. I will cherish our bond and love you today, tomorrow, and forever. I will trust and honour you. I will share your laughter and your tears. I will love you freely, faithfully, honestly and unconditionally. Through the best times and the worst times, through sickness and in health, through the difficult and the easy. Come what may, I will always be there. As I’ve given you my hand to hold, so I give you my life. On this day and on any day.”

“On this day, and on any day,” Scott echoes and keeps his hands tight around hers as she repeats her vows to him.

 

“Tessa and Scott,” Father Robert says after a moment and the two of them turn their attention to him, letting go of one hand so they stand shoulder to shoulder before the priest. “I would ask that you always treat yourself and each other with respect, and remind yourselves often of what brought you here together today. Give the highest priority to the tenderness, gentleness and kindness that your marriage deserves. When frustration and difficulty assail your marriage - as they do to every relationship at one time or another - focus on what still seems right between you, not only the part that seems wrong.” Scott nods emphatically, this has been their motto for the better part of a decade, so it won’t be hard to uphold. 

 

“And I ask your friends and family gathered here today that they will help you on the road ahead, with patience and an open ear, to support this relationship the way they have for the last twenty-two years. Keep steady on, don’t lose sight of one another and keep those hands and hearts safe and tight in each others sure grasp.”

 

Next up in the ceremony are the prayers for the faithful. One by one, their family steps up to the Gazebo, six in total, to read the prayers they’ve written themselves to a resonse of “Lord, hear our prayer.”

“Let us pray for joy, happiness and togetherness for Tessa and Scott, and a healthy, bountiful life together,” says Scott’s mother, cheeks strained with happy tears.

“Let us pray for a fulfilling partnership, for patience and understanding and holding each other high,” says Kate.

“Let us pray for a future full of laughter and adventures, for a journey rich in lessons and poor in heartache,” says Joe.

“Let us pray for a safe and secure environment, a strong and united Canada for Tessa and Scott to build their family in,” says Jim Virtue.

“Let us pray for quick and uncomplicated births, happy, healthy children and little skates taking over rinks, or ballerina slippers, or whatever else their kids might want to do,” says Jordan, with a wink.

“Let us pray for long lives spent in the absolute certainty that your family and friends will always be with you, every step of the way, whatever may befall you, good, bad and better,” says Danny and then holds his hand out for Charlotte (the chosen-by-straws ring-bearer).

 

Charlotte steps forward proud of her important task, the cushion with the rings only shaking a little bit in her hands as she passes it on to the Father.

“Scott, do you take Tessa to be your lawfully wedded wife?” Father Robert asks Scott as he works her ring from the satin band on the cushion.

“I do,” he answers and puts the ring on her hand with no issues, thanking the stars that it fits right.

“And Tessa, do you take Scott to be your lawfully wedded husband?”

“I do,” Tessa says and puts the ring on his finger. (This is a little harder but she pushes through.)

“Then I now have the great honour of pronouncing you husband and wife.”

 

There’s a cheer from the audience and Father Robert waits it out until he says his last prayer. “Bless their marriage, O God, as they begin their journey down the road of life together. We don't know what lies ahead for the road turns and bends. But help them to make the best of whatever comes their way. Help them to realise that nothing nor no one is perfect and to look for the good in all things and all people including themselves. Help them to respect each other's likes and dislikes, opinions and beliefs, hopes and dreams and fears. Help them to learn from each other and to help each other to grow mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. Help them to create for their children a peaceful, stable home of love as a foundation on which they can build their lives. But most of all, dear God, help them to keep lit the torch of love' that they now share so that by their loving example they may pass on the light of love to their children and to their children's children forever. Amen.”

“Amen,” echoes the crowd.

 

“Scott, you may now kiss your bride,” Father Robert says and Scott doesn’t waist a second, kisses her to more cheers and some wailing here and there and even does the silly raising-his-arm-above-his-head-in-a-victory-punch-thing before scooping her up into his arms and hugging her as tight as he can. She’s laughing into his ear, laughing and crying and it’s still his favourite sound in the world. _She said I do, she said I do, she said I do!_

 

“Dear friends, dear family,” Father Robert declares as soon as they break apart. “I would like to introduce to you Scott Moir and Tessa Virtue-Moir.”

 

After, Scott floats down the aisle with her, that’s the best way to put it. He doesn’t even hear “Come What May” as it booms across the grass. He can’t look ahead, only at her and his heart is too full to process any more than sheer and pure bliss. He doesn’t think he’s ever felt this accomplished or this happy, on no podium in the world, at no momentous occasion, small or little victory. This is the pinnacle. And the most amazing thing is that with her by his side, it only goes up from here and he’s honestly not sure how to contain all of the joy at the prospect of this in his mere mortal chest. But he’ll try…and if it spills over, well, that’s what the party is for, after all.

 

And party they do, even if a million little things go wrong the way they always do. From Tessa’s heel that breaks when they take the pictures, to the nephews that get in a brief fistfight that can only be broken up by Charlie, Patch and Chiddy getting in there to the DJ who cued up the wrong first dance song and Scott has to walk up there and do it himself (remembering oddly the times at competitions where their music wouldn’t work). But as soon as Tessa’s in his arms and they dance to Elvis Costello’s “She”, he’s already forgotten all about it.

 

And then he lets loose, dances with anyone who’ll dance with him, with Marie-France and Midori, with Julie and Kate and his Mom and Charlotte, standing on his shoes. He leads the crowd in a maccarena and then a polonaise once out into the yard and back, JF patting his back all the way back into the barn and with Tessa, always with Tessa, who shines like an entire sky of stars. At one point, when he’s taken a big chunk of the wedding cake and practically inhaled it for fuel, he misses his wife (his WIFE, god dammit) in the hall and asks around (saying “Have you seen my _wife_?” more often than he really would have to) and eventually is pointed to the Gazebo outside where she stands, beautiful and serene in the moonlight and the sheen of fairy lights worked in between the flowers hanging overhead. 

 

She smiles warmly when she sees him.

“Taking a breather?” He asks her and she nods, taking the glass of wine he holds out for her gladly.

“Just need a second to regroup,” she tells him.

“But you’re having fun?” He checks and opens his arms for her to snuggle into.

“The time of my life,” she reassures him. “It’s…everything is perfect right now.”

“Not excellent,” he says. “Perfect!”

“Exactly,” she agrees. “Scott?”

“Hm?” He asks, following her lead when she leans out to look at him. “Thank you for marrying me.”

“Geez, T,” he laughs whole-heartedly. “I am definitely the one who has to thank _you._ God knows you could do so much better.”

“Never,” she says. “Never ever.”

And he just has to kiss her, he can’t help it. She is the best thing that ever happened to him and the only woman he ever wants to kiss again. So he does.

 

After a long while of that (and after Tessa had to remind him that she’s still in her wedding dress and he should try to maybe not rip it off her body and make love to her out on the lawn in front of their entire family), he brings her back to the dance floor and spins her around to “You Make My Dreams Come True” by _fucking_ Hall &Oates because he loves her and she married him and so, fine, she can have it. And they sing along from the top of their lungs, sing their big, overflowing hearts out to the beginning of the rest of their life.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so I really did write an entire wedding service?! And I don't really know how that happened?  
> The basic structure as well as the prayer, I got from here: https://www.greatofficiants.com/catholic-lite-wedding-ceremony
> 
> And also, because I was firmly encouraged by the Happy Chat to write a little extra extra bonus chapter you can expect that once I have finished BEHAVE!.
> 
> Thanks to everybody who has read and commented so far, each and every word of you means the world to me! Thank you, thank you, thank you!!


	7. (Bonus)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Scott and Tessa try to name their baby.
> 
> This ties in with the last chapter of BEHAVE! and it is set in the same universe, so of you have not checked that out yet, find it in the link to the series!
> 
> I hope you like this and thank you for your patience regarding this last chapter!

**(Bonus)**

 

The last whimper had just ebbed, just a short minute ago and Tessa and Scott are still holding their breath. But finally, after an hour of a fussy newborn with a problem neither of them could figure out (they changed him, Tessa nursed him, they carried him around, held him, sang to him, nothing seemed to make him happy) apparently, finally, something they had done worked and their little baby boy had settled in, his tiny, button-cute face scrunched against Tessa’s chest and Scott gingerly draws the spaghetti strap wedged between Momma’s skin and baby out so as to not potentially disrupt his breathing or comfort. Tessa sighs in bone-deep relief.

 

“Thank God,” she breathes. “I was getting worried something was wrong.”

“I don’t think so,” Scott says, scooting closer on the bed to his wife and son and works his arm around Tessa’s shoulder. “He’s just getting used to being in the world. There’s so many new things here. And he’s only been around for two days.”

“I can’t believe it’s only been two,” Tessa muses, looking at their son and then around their brand new bedroom in the house Scott and his brothers had finally finished renovating (which had seen the light of day in its present final state only about two weeks before their baby). “I feel like I’ve known him forever, like he’s always been here.”

“That’s ‘cause he looks like me,” Scott quips, knowing what she will say.

“He looks a lot more like _me_ ,” Tessa says and pokes out her tongue, making him chuckle.

“Why won’t you just trust my mother?” He challenges playfully and smooches her on the head. “She said we’re identical.”

 

“But he has _my_ eyes,” Tessa insists and Scott laughs breathily.

“And thank God for that,” he hums and kisses her head again, slower this time, more deliberate (and yeah, he could go for her now but he’s well aware that they will be a while before they’ll get back into the saddle…he has literally just gotten her home from the hospital after giving birth, so he calms his body down and just enjoys the soft moan his touches coax from her and the way she arches closer into his arms). “They’re gorgeous eyes.”

This time, she turns her head around when he leans down to kiss her and catches his mouth, indulgent and lavish, working her lips and tongue against his without rush, just a sense of purpose, not breathing harder or more erratic. At least at first. Then he brings his free hand up to her face and tugs, fingernails scrapping the skin just below her ear, sucks her bottom lip between his teeth (because he is weak and hungry for her) and she whimpers. And then _winces_ in pain and rips her head back from him, starring with wide, bulging eyes, startled.

 

“What? Babe, you okay?” Scott asks quickly, his dick (which had raised its head in piqued interest a moment ago) and face falling together.

“That hurt,” she tells him but looks more surprised than agonised. “You know, getting turned on. Shot right down. And _hurt_.”

“Fuck,” Scott mutters and she shoots him a glare, then looks down at their baby in warning. “Sorry” He apologises, even if their son is a) asleep and b) not going to pick up a curse word on his _second_ day on this beautiful earth. “So, no more turning you on?” He asks and he loves having a kid so far but that kind of sucks.

“Yeah, apparently,” Tessa says and looks grief-stricken. “Which is annoying because I really wanna have sex with you.” Then another jolt races past her features. “Ouch.”

 

“What?” He asks, voice concerned and touches her cheek gently.

“I thought about it again,” she says. “Quick, distract me, talk about something else.”

“How long do you think it will hurt?” Scott asks her, ignoring her plea.

“I don’t know,” Tessa says and makes a face. “I gave birth two days ago, I’d give my business a little time to heal. And the doctor said to not have _sex_ -sex until the six week post-partum check up.”

“Oh, those were the six weeks,” Scott mutters, vaguely remembering that conversation he had been mostly too enthralled by their son in his arms with, for. “But it’s good to know you still…want to sleep with me.”

“Why wouldn’t I?” She asks.

“Because I read some women lose their sex drive for a while after giving birth,” he tells her.

“Not me, I could jump you,” she says and then bites her lip. “Ouch, Scott, I mean it. We can’t talk about this anymore. Tell me something else.”

 

Scott relents because no matter how happy he is hearing that yes, his wife still very much wants to fuck him even if a mere two days ago she had spent roughly seventeen hours in labour giving birth to their son, he still does not like to see her in pain, so he clamours for something else to keep her mind off of wanting to make love to him. 

 

“A name,” he says, because _duh_ , that’s something they should be talking about anyway. “We still haven’t decided.”

“Right,” Tessa agrees and they both take a moment to take in their sleeping baby on her chest, his tiny bunched up face angelic and undisturbed in sleep. So far his name is “Baby Boy Moir”, which does not have much of a future. 

 

In true Tessa-and-Scott fashion, they had not been able to make a quick decision about their son’s name, going back and forth and arguing, even before they knew what sex he was going to be. (“Moira,” Tessa had suggested once in that week she was absolutely convinced they were going to have a girl and Scott had looked at her like she’d lost her mind, because she _had_. “Moira, T? Moira Moir?! Listen to yourself, woman,” Scott had scoffed but then had a little freak-out about assuming that the kids would have his name only —but even so, Moira Virtue-Moir was still unacceptable—, a freakout which Tessa had cut short quickly, though: “No, they will be Moir’s, that’s fine. I want it that way.”) As soon as they learned they would indeed be having a boy, Tessa went into overdrive and hit the internet in the search of the perfect name.

 

And it had been a pain, even greater than the search for competition music had been. Because if you made an off choice there, you had to skate to a piece every day for a season, which was annoying, but if you chose the wrong name for your baby, that was severe and the consequences forever. So they had set out to find the perfect name. Which meant Tessa scoured and presented him with new choices almost daily.

“David,” she had read from her laptop one day and he tilted his head at her. Nice name, terrible history attached. He could see the moment this clicked for her too and she’d pursed her lips. “Nevermind.”

 

“Kian?” She had tried again. 

“Sounds like a car. Not feeling it.”

“George.”

“Nope, no royal’s names.” (She’d groaned.)

“Bellamy.”

“Absolutely not. Isn’t that a girl’s name?”

“No, it’s unisex.”

“I don’t like it.”

“Fine. Derrick?”

“Ugh, no. Seriously, T, who are you? Do you have _no_ taste? What about something nice and a little more common? Like…Thomas?”

“Hm. Not too into it. I want something a little more…special.”

“Those hipster names don’t age well, you know that.”

“Well, we got Joseph for the second name, that’s more common.”

“We do?” (This was the first time he heard about the fact that she had apparently already decided to name their son after his father. He’d been momentarily touched and had pulled her close for a while.)

“We do,” she’d said, once she had settled into his arms. “That means we can combine it with something a little more out of left-field. Crowe?”

“Veto. _Hard_ veto.”

“Campbell.”

“Like the soup?! No.”

“Scott, you like _nothing_.”

“ _You_ only like crazy names! I’m just trying to be a reasonable parent here.”

“I liked Bellamy,” she had declared. “It means Friend. Or Friendship. Wouldn’t that be nice? As a meaning? For us?”

“No.”

“I really love it,” she had said. “Actually. I think it’s my standard now.” 

This time Scott had groaned. Making a thing “the standard” between them meant that everything else had to match up to it and Tessa was stubborn as hell, which meant that more often then not, her standards became the choices in the end. But not this time, he’d vowed that. Like Pride and Prejudice and Hall & Oates, Scott would never concede to “Bellamy”. There was no way.

 

But she tried. After that talk, she would slyly (or at least she’d think it was sly but he knew _exactly_ what she was doing) refer to the growing baby in her belly as Bellamy here or there. “Not gonna happen,” he’d said every time. 

 

Today, in their bed with their son, she did not utter the name once, instead humouring his suggestions. Micheal (“meh”), Cameron (“nope”), Alexander (“no”), Kyle (“absolutely not”), Drew (“maybe but not really”) are all busts. Eventually Scott says “Finn” and she pauses, considers, looks down at the sleeping boy and then back at Scott.

“Finn,” she repeats. “Finn Joseph Moir.” Scott looks at his son as well, turning the name over in his head as she goes on. “Yeah, maybe. Finn is alright. But let’s give it a day, huh?”

They find each others eyes and she smiles but he finds the same uncertainty mirrored on her face that he felt studying their son. Finn is quite nice. But it doesn’t seem to fit, not all the way. Like _Seasons._

 

A day later, they make their decision. And it takes until he late afternoon when Scott has just changed his sons diaper on their living room carpet and Scott has misplaced one of his socks and can’t find it again for the life of him. He calls out for Tessa, who is rummaging around in their open-floor kitchen. “Babe, can you grab new socks for Bellamy?”

 

And he freezes, a hand still on his baby’s belly. And then Tessa comes running to him, roaring in triumph, like a frightening Mama-dinosaur.

“HA!” She exclaims and then laughs and laughs, full-bodied, saying “Ouch” in between guffaws because her stitches probably hurt but she doesn’t care, she cackles at him like a hyena and points vehemently at his head. “YOU SAID BELLAMY! Hahahahahaaha!”

 

Damn her. Damn her and her tricks and her mind games and her stupid plan that has worked on him. His child’s name is _Bellamy._ Jesus fucking Christ. But because he loves her and he loves Bellamy, too, he can’t stay mad for more than twenty seconds and then he scoops up his son and gets to his feet, holding his baby in a tight bundle pressed close to his chest, careful to cup his whole tiny head in his secure palm and steps into the bellowing laughter and shade of his triumphant wife.

“Bellamy?” She asks, looking up at him with stars in her eyes and he loves her more than life.

Scott huffs, a goner. “Bellamy Joseph Moir,” he nods, defeated but not overly unhappy for it, now that he thinks about it. Somewhere in the last four months, his son became Bellamy and after three days out in the world, it has already become the only name he could ever really see fitting him. 

 

Tessa grins and then snaps her head down to kiss their son on his head, covered from birth in soft brown hair and coos: “Hi, Bellamy,” before looking back up at her husband. “Are you really happy with it?”

“Yeah,” Scott tells her. “It’s _him_.”

“I knew I was gonna get you,” she smirks and gets on her tiptoes to kiss him too.

“It’s the bane of my existence,” Scott sighs dramatically once she is back on her full feet. “Tessa gets what Tessa wants.”

“But you love me,” she grins, shit-eating and self-satisfied.

“I do,” he affirms helplessly. “So much.”

Then he kisses her again and she wraps her arms around her boys, her _family._

 

Tessa, Scott and Bellamy. And their new life begins.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So...thoughts? 
> 
> PS: You will absolutely see Bellamy again in the sequel to BEHAVE! which will be called BALANCE! and is coming soon, so keep your eyes peeled for that.
> 
> Thank you so so much for reading <3

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and reviews are literally my life's blood and I love and live for every last one! <3 Thank you for reading!


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